Backup management#

All operations with the service are effected in the Backup section where you can also find data on the main entities that the service handles.

Users can manage backup as soon as they are assigned to Backup Operator or Backup Administrator roles. The first one provides all the necessary rights to administer and perform backups excluding the right to delete backups. The second role makes deletion possible, however, if backup is configured properly, there is generally no need to delete backups manually, as they are deleted on schedule. Thus, to use backup, we recommend you to assign users to the Backup Operator role, while the Backup Administrator role should be assigned only to backup administrators, if any.

Backup plan#

Backup plan enables you to specify backup rules and resources to which these rules are applied to. See the relevant section to learn more on how to use backup plans and rules.

Create a backup plan#

To create a backup plan:

  1. Go to Backup Plans and click Create.

  2. In the dialog window, specify the plan name and rule parameters:

    • Rule name

    • Vault — Vault cannot be selected yet — only default vault is available.

    • Backup frequency — Schedule according to which backups are created. Backups can be created at the specified time as frequently as follows:

      • every hour;

      • every 12 hours;

      • daily;

      • weekly;

      For weekly backups, you can specify the days of the week when it should be performed. Moreover, arbitrary schedule can be specified using cron-expressions.

    • Backup window — Backup starts by default within an hour after the time specified at the previous step. You can specify another backup window by selecting the User settings option.

      Note

      By upsizing the window, you lower the chance of skipping the scheduled backup because the cloud will have more time to plan the workload and complete the backup job.

    • Retention period for backups — You can choose the number of days, weeks, months or even years for how long the backups should be retained. In addition, you can enable unlimited retention period.

      Note

      Retention period for backups is limited to 30 days in the beta version of the service.

  3. To create a plan, click on Create — the resources for which backups should be created against the plan can be added later. If you want to specify the resources straight away, click on Create plan and add resources to go to the next step.

  4. To add resources, specify the name of resource selection and select instances from the drop-down list. Click on Add resources.

After the plan is created, you can add additional rules.

Add a rule#

To add an additional rule to a backup plan:

  1. Go to the Backup section Plans.

  2. Click on the plan name in the resource table to go to its page.

  3. Open the Rules tab and click Add.

  4. In the dialog window, set the rule parameters:

    • Rule name

    • Vault — Vault cannot be selected yet — only default vault is available.

    • Backup frequency — Schedule according to which backups are created. As a rule, backups can be created at the specified time as frequently as follows:

      • every hour;

      • every 12 hours;

      • daily;

      • weekly;

      For weekly backup, you can specify the days of the week when it should be performed. Moreover, arbitrary schedule can be specified using cron-expressions.

    • Backup window — Backup starts by default within an hour after the time specified at the previous step. You can specify another backup window by selecting the User settings option.

    • Retention period for backups — You can choose the number of days, weeks, months or even years for how long the backups should be retained. In addition, you can enable unlimited retention period.

  5. Click Create.

Modify a rule#

To modify the rules in the backup plan:

  1. Go to the Backup section Plans.

  2. Click on the plan name in the resource table to go to its page.

  3. Open the Rules tab, select the rule in the resource table and click on:bdg-light:Modify.

  4. In the window opens, modify the necessary parameters of the rule:

    • Rule name

    • Vault — Vault cannot be selected yet — only default vault is available.

    • Backup frequency — Schedule according to which backups are created. As a rule, backups can be created at the specified time as frequently as follows:

      • every hour;

      • every 12 hours;

      • daily;

      • weekly;

      For weekly backup, you can specify the days of the week when it should be performed. Moreover, arbitrary schedule can be specified using cron-expressions.

    • Backup window — Backup starts by default within an hour after the time specified at the previous step. You can specify another backup window by selecting the User settings option.

    • Retention period for backups — You can choose the number of days, weeks, months or even years for how long the backups should be retained. In addition, you can enable unlimited retention period.

      Note

      If the retention period is changed, the new value is applied only to newly created backups.

  5. Click on Save to apply the changes.

Delete a rule#

Note

You cannot delete all the rules — the backup plan should contain at least one rule.

To delete an unnecessary rule from a backup plan:

  1. Go to the Backup section Plans.

  2. Click on the plan name in the resource table to go to its page.

  3. Open the Rules tab and select the rule in the resource table.

  4. Click Delete.

  5. Confirm deletion.

If you want to delete additional rules, repeat the above steps.

Create a selection#

To add resources to the plan that the rules will apply to, you need to create a selection of resources:

  1. Go to the Backup section Plans.

  2. Click on the plan name in the resource table to go to its page.

  3. Open the Resources tab and click Add resources.

  4. In the dialog window, specify the name of resource selection and select resources from the drop-down list.

    • In the Selection name field, specify a name for the resource selection.

    • In the Apply to instances field, from the drop-down list select instances which should be backed up.

  5. Click on Add resources.

Modify the selection#

If you want to add or exclude resources from backup plan:

  1. Go to the Backup section Plans.

  2. Click on the plan name in the resource table to go to its page.

  3. Open the Rules tab, select the resource selection in the table and click on Modify. Alternatively you can right-click the line and select Modify.

  4. In the dialog window, you can modify the name of the resource selection and add and/or exclude resources from the selection:

    • In the Selection name field, specify a new name, if necessary.

    • In the Apply to instances field, delete instances which do not have to be backed up or/and add instances by selecting them from the drop-down list.

  5. Click on Save to apply the changes.

Delete selection#

Note

When the selection is deleted, the resources that the selection contains and their backups are not deleted. They are just removed from the backup plan.

To delete the selection from the plan:

  1. Go to the Backup section Plans.

  2. Click on the plan name in the resource table to go to its page.

  3. Open the Rules tab, select the resource selection in the table and click on Delete. Alternatively you can right-click the line and select Delete.

  4. In the dialog window, confirm the action.

Delete a plan#

Note

Before deleting a plan, you should delete the resource selections related to it.

To delete a backup plan:

  1. Go to the Backup section Plans.

  2. Select the plan in the resource list and click on Delete. Alternatively you can right-click the line and select Delete.

  3. In the dialog window, confirm the action.

Note

A plan can be also deleted in the Information tab on its page.

Protected resources#

In the Protected resources subsection the data on resources for which there are backups is shown.

Note

If a resource has been excluded from the backup plan, its backups can be obsolete.

To view what backups there are for a certain resource:

  1. Go to the Backup section ** Protected resources**.

  2. Click the ID of the desired resource to go to its page and open the Recovery points tab.

  3. To find the desired backup, use search or table sorting by columns.

In the Recovery points tab, you can also create an instance from the selected backup. The creation procedure is similar to creating an instance from a backup in the Recovery points subsection.

To create an instance from a backup:

  1. Go to the Backup section ** Protected instances**.

  2. Select the instance you want to recover and click on the resource ID to go to its page.

  3. Open the Recovery points tab and select a backup in the table, for example, by the date of creation.

  4. Click on Create instance and follow the steps from 2 to 7 as described in instance creation wizard.

Recovery points#

Create an instance from a backup#

When a backup is created, a virtual machine image is created with the corresponding volume snapshots. You can create an instance from this image or directly from a backup.

Note

If the user does not have Backup Operator or Backup Administrator privileges, but has privileges to create an instance, then it can be created only by using images corresponding to backups.

  1. Go to the Backup section Recover points.

  2. Select the backup from which you want to create an instance. To make searching easier you can filter the backups, for example, by instance ID.

  3. Click on Create instance and follow the steps from 2 to 7 as described in instance creation wizard.

You can also create an instance from a backup in the Protected Resources subsection.

Delete a backup#

Backups are deleted automatically as soon as their retention period expires (when a finite period is specified). You can delete them manually before the expiration date, but we recommend to do this unless absolutely necessary. Manually deleted backups are retained for up to five days. See to learn more about the backup deletion policy.

  1. Go to the Backup section Recover points.

  2. Select the backup you want to delete. To make searching easier you can filter the backups, for example, by instance ID.

  3. Click on Delete and confirm the action.

  4. If you need to delete other backups, follow steps 2 and 3 repeatedly.

Note

A backup can be also deleted in the Information tab on its page.

Jobs#

Information on backup jobs is shown in the Jobs subsection. You can filter the job list by their completion date:

  • during the last 24 hours;

  • during the last 7 days;

  • during the whole period.

Information on backup#

The data on the main entities that are used by the backup service can be found in the corresponding subsections of the Backup section.

Subsection

Displayed data

Plans

  • Plan name

  • Creation date

  • Last runtime

  • Next runtime

Protected resources

  • Resource ID

  • Last backup

  • Name tag

  • Resource deletion status

Recovery points

  • Recovery point ID

  • Instance for which the backup is created

  • Backup status

  • Consistency

  • Creation date

Jobs

  • Job ID

  • Job status

  • Instance for job the task is running

  • Job creation date

For details about a particular entity see the Information tab on its page. To open an entity page, select it in the relevant table and click on the name (in the case of a plan) or ID.

For rule parameters for a specific backup plan see the Rules tab on the plan page which provides the following information:

  • Rule name.

  • Target backup vault.

  • Backup frequency (cron expression).

  • Backup window size.

  • Backup retention period.