This topic describes the Object Storage Service (OSS) backup feature of Cloud Backup, including its benefits, how it works, procedure, and billing.
Introduction
OSS backup is a scheduled data protection solution for Alibaba Cloud OSS. You can configure a backup policy to regularly back up objects in OSS buckets to Cloud Backup. If your objects are accidentally deleted or modified, you can use Cloud Backup to restore them.
This feature has some limits. For more information, see Limits.
Benefits
Native Alibaba Cloud OSS backup capability
You do not need to install any backup components to protect the data in OSS buckets.
Fine-grained OSS data protection
You can back up all objects in a bucket or only objects that match specified prefixes to achieve fine-grained data protection.
Flexible data versioning
You can configure scheduled backup plans to run daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly, and specify a retention period for the backup data. This lets you flexibly manage backup data versions.
Easy-to-use file recovery
You can restore one or more objects to a specified point in time from the Cloud Backup console. You do not need to run scripts or programs to check the historical versions of the objects.
Deduplication and compression
When Cloud Backup backs up data from a source OSS bucket, it compresses and deduplicates the data. This process minimizes the storage space that is required for backup data.
Immutable backups to prevent accidental or malicious deletion
Cloud Backup provides an immutable backup feature that is based on backup vaults. Backup data cannot be deleted by any account or method before the configured retention period expires.
How it works
The OSS backup feature of Cloud Backup is seamlessly integrated with OSS. You do not need to deploy other storage services to protect OSS data. To back up more than 100 million objects, you can use the OSS inventory feature.
When a backup plan runs, Cloud Backup scans the specified bucket and obtains the latest version of the data in the bucket using the OSS inventory or the specified prefix. Cloud Backup then identifies the objects to be backed up, deduplicates, compresses, and encrypts the data, and uploads the incremental data to the backup vault. Cloud Backup uses an incremental-forever backup strategy. After the first full backup job, each subsequent backup job uploads only the data that has changed since the previous backup job. A complete full backup is then synthesized to minimize storage consumption.
Differences between OSS backup and OSS versioning
OSS backup is a fine-grained backup solution that is based on the backup policy that you configure. This prevents a sudden increase in the number of backup versions when objects are frequently modified and minimizes storage consumption.
With the OSS versioning solution, a new version is created each time an object is modified. This solution lets you retrieve any previous version and restore data. You can select an appropriate data protection solution based on the importance of your OSS objects and your business scenarios.
Procedure
The following procedure shows how to back up objects from an OSS bucket in the Cloud Backup console.
You are not charged for activating Cloud Backup. You are charged for the storage usage of backup vaults created in Cloud Backup. For more information, see Billing methods and billable items.
When you create a backup plan, configure the backup vault, data source, backup cycle, and retention period. Cloud Backup starts the backup plan and continuously backs up objects from the specified OSS bucket.
ImportantYou can enjoy a 30-day free backup plan. You cannot edit the source path and backup cycle for a free backup plan.
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 OSS objects 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.
After you create a backup plan, the first backup job performs a full backup and subsequent backup jobs perform incremental backups.
You are not charged for restoration in the same region. If a file exception occurs in an OSS bucket, you can restore all objects or some objects that meet the specified conditions based on historical backups. You can restore the objects to the source OSS bucket for free or restore the objects to a new OSS bucket for free. You are charged for the traffic and storage capacity of the remote mirror vault.
Usage notes
The first time you create a backup plan or attach a backup policy, Cloud Backup automatically creates a service-linked role for Cloud Backup named AliyunServiceRoleForHbrOssBackup to obtain permissions to access related resources. In the authorization dialog box that appears, grant the required permissions to the role.
Before you use Cloud Backup to protect OSS data, note the following:
Cloud Backup supports backing up and restoring buckets of the Standard and IA storage classes. It does not support backing up or restoring buckets of the Archive, Cold Archive, or Deep Cold Archive storage classes.
Cloud Backup supports backing up and restoring objects of the Standard and IA storage classes. Objects of the IA storage class are restored as objects of the Standard storage class. Cloud Backup does not support backing up or restoring objects of the Archive, Cold Archive, or Deep Cold Archive storage classes.
Cloud Backup does not support backing up or restoring the access control list (ACL) of an object.
You are charged OSS request fees for OSS API operations that Cloud Backup calls during the backup of OSS objects. These fees are charged by OSS. For more information, see Billing.
When Cloud Backup reads OSS data from IA buckets or objects for backup, you incur OSS data retrieval fees. You are charged based on the volume of retrieved data. These fees are charged by OSS. For more information, see Data processing fees.
Deleting an early backup version from the backup history does not affect the data integrity of other backup versions.
The scheduled backup plan that is enabled when you create an OSS bucket is a 30-day free trial. The plan is automatically disabled upon expiration. We recommend that you switch to the paid plan promptly.
ImportantThe free trial plan has limitations. You cannot edit the source path and backup cycle. Each free trial plan uses a separate backup vault. You cannot change the backup vault after you switch to the paid plan. If you plan to back up all your data to the same backup vault in the future, do not use the free trial plan.
Billing
When you use the OSS backup feature, the following fees are incurred:
Storage usage fees
Cloud Backup provides two types of backup storage: locally redundant storage (LRS) and zone-redundant storage (ZRS). You are charged based on the storage usage of the backup vaults. You can view the storage usage of backup vaults on the Overview page in the Cloud Backup console. For more information, see Pricing.
API request fees
Before each backup job starts, Cloud Backup calls the ListObject operation to obtain the list of objects to be backed up. Each ListObject request can list up to 1,000 objects.
After the object list is obtained, Cloud Backup calls the HeadObject operation to obtain the metadata of the objects to be backed up. Each HeadObject request can obtain the metadata of one object.
Cloud Backup uses the GetObject API to back up files, generating one API request for each Object.
Cloud Backup calls the ListObject operation to query the backup progress and verify the objects that are backed up. Each ListObject request can verify up to 1,000 objects.
When you use the OSS inventory feature to back up data, you are not charged for the preceding ListObject requests, but you are charged for the OSS inventory feature. For more information, see Bucket inventory.
For more information about the billing rules for OSS API requests, see API operation calling fees.
OSS data retrieval fees
When Cloud Backup reads data from IA buckets or objects for backup, OSS data retrieval fees are incurred. These fees are charged by OSS based on the volume of retrieved data. For more information, see Data processing fees.
In addition, Cloud Backup charges the following fees based on specific backup configurations or operations:
What to do next
Learn how to back up OSS objects. For more information, see Back up OSS objects and Back up many OSS objects using the OSS inventory feature.
Learn about the best practices of Cloud Backup. For more information, see Best practices.