Back up ECS files - Cloud Backup - Alibaba Cloud Documentation Center

This topic describes the Elastic Compute Service (ECS) file backup feature of Cloud Backup, including its key advantages, how it works, the backup and restore procedure, and billing.

Introduction

The ECS file backup feature is a data protection solution provided by Cloud Backup for file systems on ECS instances. This feature backs up ECS file data to backup vaults simply, securely, and reliably. This ensures that data can be recovered from backup vaults if data in your production system is accidentally deleted or encrypted by ransomware.

Important

This feature has certain limitations. For more information, see Compatible system list and limits.

Key advantages

Automatic client installation
After you select the ECS file server that you want to back up, Cloud Backup automatically installs the backup client.
Cross-account backup
After you grant the required permissions, use Account A to back up data from Account B. This facilitates centralized data protection management for enterprises.
Deduplication and compression
The Cloud Backup client compresses and deduplicates the source ECS data before a backup. This reduces storage consumption and accelerates backups.
Backup lock to prevent accidental or malicious deletion
Cloud Backup provides a backup lock feature for backup vaults. Backup data cannot be deleted by any account or method before the configured retention period expires.
Geo-redundancy
Use the mirror vault feature to replicate your backup data to a remote location. This adds another layer of protection for critical data.

How it works

Backup principle

Cloud Backup backs up data by automatically deploying a client on an ECS instance. The client uses Cloud Assistant for installation and management. The Cloud Assistant Agent must be pre-installed or manually installed on the ECS instance. The client backs up specified folders on the ECS instance based on the backup plan configuration.

The backup process uses an incremental-forever mechanism. The first backup is a full backup. Subsequent backups are incremental and upload only changed data. A complete full backup is then synthesized in the cloud. The client scans the specified folders to identify the files to back up, and then performs data deduplication and compression to reduce network traffic.

Client O&M

Cloud Backup uses Cloud Assistant to install or uninstall the backup client and check the client status. If the client status is abnormal, Cloud Backup attempts to repair the client using Cloud Assistant. These O&M tasks are performed using scripts. The following list describes the scripts:

Installation process: The installation script runs a precheck of file system permissions, network connectivity, and software dependencies. If the precheck is successful, the script downloads the installation package to a local disk and installs the package.

After the installation is complete, two new services are added.

Windows: Alibaba Cloud Backup Service and Alibaba Cloud Backup Update Service

Linux: hbrclient.service and hbrupdater.service. The process names are hbrclient and updater, respectively.

# Obtain information about all services and processes that contain "hbr".
systemctl list-units | grep hbr | awk '{print $1}' | xargs -I {} sh -c 'echo Service: {}; systemctl show {} -p MainPID | grep MainPID=; ps -p $(systemctl show {} -p MainPID | grep MainPID= | cut -d "=" -f2) -o pid,comm,cmd'

# The following result is returned:
Service: hbrclient.service
MainPID=2170
    PID COMMAND         CMD
   2170 hbrclient       /opt/alibabacloud/hbrclient/client/hbrclient run
Service: hbrclientupdater.service
MainPID=2246
    PID COMMAND         CMD
   2246 updater         /opt/alibabacloud/hbrclient/update/updater

Uninstallation process: The uninstallation script uses the installed uninstaller program to uninstall the client.
After the uninstallation is complete, the hbrclient and hbrupdater services are removed, and the hbrclient and updater processes are stopped.
Restart process: The restart script uses system services to restart the hbrclient and hbrupdater services. If the system services cannot restart the services, the script attempts to restart the client by terminating the processes.
Check process: The diagnostic script checks the client version, error logs, network reachability, disk space, mount information, and system time.

Procedure

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

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.
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.
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

You are charged for the ECS file backup feature of Cloud Backup based on the following billable items:

Cloud Backup clients for file backup: You are charged based on the number of ECS instances on which the client is installed.
Storage usage: You are charged based on the storage usage of backup vaults. View the storage usage of backup vaults on the Overview page in the Cloud Backup console. Cloud Backup provides two types of backup storage: locally redundant storage (LRS) and zone-redundant storage (ZRS).

For more information about the pricing of billable items, see Pricing.

In addition, Cloud Backup charges the following fees based on specific backup 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.

Cloud Backup:Overview