Cloud Backup：Overview

Introduction

Cloud Backup provides the ECS file backup feature to protect the files on your ECS instances. Cloud Backup allows you to back up ECS files to backup vaults in a simple, secure, and reliable manner. If data is accidentally deleted or your production system encounters ransomware attacks, you can restore data from backup vaults.

Benefits

• Automatic client installation

  After you select an ECS instance to create a file backup plan, Cloud Backup automatically installs a client on the ECS instance.

• Cross-account backup

  After you grant the required permissions, you can use Account A to back up the data of Account B. This allows you to centrally manage data protection.

• Deduplication and compression

  When Cloud Backup backs up data from a source ECS instance, the Cloud Backup client compresses and deduplicates the data. This minimizes the storage space occupied by the backup data and increases the backup speed.

• Immutable backup against accidental or malicious deletion

  Cloud Backup provides the immutable backup feature based on backup vaults. Backup data cannot be deleted by any account or method before the configured retention period expires.

• Geo-redundancy

  If you need to back up data to a remote location, you can create a mirror vault for a backup vault to quickly protect critical data.

How it works

You can specify the ECS instance to be backed up in the Cloud Backup console. Cloud Backup automatically pushes the client to the ECS instance. You must make sure that Cloud Assistant Agent is installed on the ECS instance. The client backs up the specified folders on the ECS instance based on the backup plan that you configure.

When a backup plan is running, the Cloud Backup client scans the specified folders to identify the files to be backed up, compresses and deduplicates the source data, and then uploads incremental data to the backup vault. Cloud Backup uses an incremental-forever backup strategy. Except for the first full backup job, each subsequent backup job uploads only the data that has changed compared with the previous backup job. A complete full backup is synthesized on the cloud to minimize network and storage consumption.

Procedure

The following procedure shows how to back up ECS files in the Cloud Backup console.

1. Activate Cloud Backup

   You are not charged for activating Cloud Backup. You are charged for the Cloud Backup client that you use to back up files and the storage usage of backup vaults. For more information, see Billing methods and billable items.

2. Back up files from an ECS instance

   When you create a backup plan, configure the backup vault, data source, backup cycle, and retention period. After you create the backup plan, Cloud Backup installs a backup client on the source ECS instance. Cloud Backup starts the backup plan and continuously backs up files from the ECS instance.

   Important

   • If the region that you select supports backup policies, you can set a backup plan only by associating it with a backup policy. Cloud Backup periodically backs up ECS files based on the backup policy.

   • To view the regions that support backup policies, click Policy Center in the left-side navigation pane of the Cloud Backup console. For more information about how to create a backup policy, see Create a backup policy.

   • Backup plans are upgraded to backup policies. If you are using a backup plan of the previous version, you can create a backup policy or bind a backup policy to the backup plan when you edit the backup plan. After the upgrade, the backup history of the previous backup plan still exists. To ensure that you are able to view the backup history, we recommend that you use the same backup vault for the old backup plan and the new backup policy.

3. Restore files to an ECS instance

   If a file is lost or abnormal in the ECS instance, you can restore the file based on historical backup points. You can restore the file to the original ECS instance, a new ECS instance, or an on-premises server.

   Important

   • If you restore data to a new ECS instance, you are charged for using a file backup client.

   • If you restore data to an on-premises server, you are charged for using a file backup client and the outbound Internet traffic.

Billing

In addition, Cloud Backup charges the following backup fees based on specific configurations or operations:

• Geo-redundancy fees: If you create a remote mirror vault to copy data from a backup vault in an Alibaba Cloud region to another region for geo-redundancy, you are charged for the storage capacity of the mirror vault and the cross-region replication traffic. The size of the mirror vault is the same as that of the source backup vault, and the pricing is the same.

• Additional request fees

  If other file systems are mounted to the file directory specified in the back plan, for example, an Object Storage Service (OSS) bucket is mounted to the directory by using ossfs, additional request fees may be incurred. The fees are charged by the corresponding service provider. For example, the service provider of OSS is Alibaba Cloud. When you mount a file system, you must understand and consider the billing rules of the service providers to prevent unexpected fees.

What to do next

• View answers to some frequently asked questions (FAQ). For more information, see ECS backup FAQ.

• Learn about the best practices of Cloud Backup. For more information, see Best Practices.