Cloud Backup provides full-machine backup and disaster recovery for VMs in on-premises VMware environments and Alibaba Cloud VMware Service (ACVS). Restore VMs to on-premises VMware, ACVS, or Alibaba Cloud ECS to ensure data security and business continuity.
Introduction
The VMware backup and disaster recovery feature is a full-machine protection solution from Cloud Backup for virtual machines (VMs) in on-premises VMware environments and Alibaba Cloud VMware Service (ACVS). It backs up entire VMs to the cloud simply, securely, and reliably. If an on-premises data center fails, a VM goes down, production data is accidentally deleted, or a ransomware attack occurs, you can restore the entire VM from a backup vault in the cloud. You can restore to an on-premises VMware environment, Alibaba Cloud VMware Service, or Alibaba Cloud ECS. This provides disaster recovery for business systems and ensures data security and business continuity.
This feature has some limits. For more information, see Compatible systems and limits.
Key advantages
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No on-premises hardware required
Back up data directly from your on-premises environment to the cloud without purchasing separate hardware.
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Agentless
No client installation inside the VM operating system is required. Deploy one or more backup gateways in the VMware environment instead.
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Integrated backup and disaster recovery
After a VM is backed up, you can restore it to your on-premises VMware environment, Alibaba Cloud VMware Service, or Alibaba Cloud ECS. This ensures both data security and business continuity.
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Source-side deduplication and compression
The Cloud Backup gateway compresses and deduplicates data at the source before backup. This saves bandwidth during upload and reduces backup storage consumption in the cloud.
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Backup locking to prevent accidental deletion
Cloud Backup provides a backup vault-based locking feature. Backup data cannot be deleted by any account or method before the configured retention period expires.
How it works
In the vCenter environment that you want to back up, deploy and activate a Cloud Backup VMware backup and disaster recovery gateway using the OVA VM template provided by Cloud Backup. Each vCenter environment requires only one gateway, but larger environments may need more. The gateway backs up VMs according to the backup plan.
When a backup job runs, the backup gateway takes a snapshot of the specified VM. It then reads the snapshot data using the official VMware software development kit (SDK). After data deduplication and compression, the gateway uploads the data to the cloud to complete the backup. Cloud Backup uses an automatic incremental backup and merge mechanism. After the first full backup, each subsequent backup uploads only the changed data. This data is then synthesized into a new full backup in the cloud. This process reduces network and storage consumption. Cloud Backup also supports the official VMware incremental interface. This lets you read native incremental data directly, which greatly reduces data transmission over the internal network.
Cloud Backup supports migration to Alibaba Cloud over the Internet, a VPN, or a leased line. For backups over the Internet, the backup gateway only needs to access the Internet. You do not need to expose its IP address to the Internet.
Cloud Backup supports restoring VMware VM backup data as an ECS image in the Alibaba Cloud environment. Clone the source VM's data from a specific backup point in time to enable VM-level disaster recovery and migration from an on-premises data center to the cloud.
When restoring a backed-up VMware VM to an ECS image, Cloud Backup automatically creates a temporary intermediate ECS instance to restore data and generate the image. The system creates a snapshot for this image by default, which incurs storage fees. After the image is generated, the intermediate instance is automatically released, leaving only the ECS image. Create ECS instances from this image as needed to restore data and rebuild your system environment.
Procedures
On-premises VMware
To back up VMware VMs in an on-premises VMware environment using the Cloud Backup console, follow these steps:
No fee is charged to enable the Cloud Backup service. Charges for Cloud Backup include a software usage fee for VMware backup and a storage capacity fee. For more information about billing, see Billing methods and billable items.
To ensure that the backup service runs correctly, create a VMware username and password for Cloud Backup to access the vCenter Server and its resources.
Add a disaster recovery gateway
Create a disaster recovery gateway in the Cloud Backup console. The disaster recovery gateway helps you perform backup and restore jobs.
Install and activate disaster recovery gateway
After downloading the gateway and the certificate, install and activate the gateway in your VMware environment. After activation, you can create backup and restore jobs in the Cloud Backup console.
Before you back up VMware VMs, you must add the vCenter Server in the Cloud Backup console.
Back up VMware virtual machines
Create a backup plan in the Cloud Backup console. Configure the plan name, backup cycle, and retention period. Cloud Backup then starts the plan and regularly backs up your VMware VMs according to the schedule.
Restore a VMware virtual machine
If a VMware VM encounters an issue, you can create a restore job to recover the VM to an on-premises server, an ECS instance, or Alibaba Cloud VMware Service.
Alibaba Cloud VMware service (ACVS)
To back up VMs in Alibaba Cloud VMware Service using the Cloud Backup console, follow these steps:
Activating the Cloud Backup service is free of charge. Charges for Cloud Backup include software usage fees (for VMware backup software) and storage capacity fees. For more information, see Billing methods and billable items.
Prepare the VMware service environment
To ensure the backup service runs correctly, obtain the login credentials and address for the VMware management components, and configure the firewall for the virtual private cloud (VPC) and the dedicated VMware environment.
Add a disaster recovery gateway
Create a disaster recovery gateway in the Cloud Backup console. The disaster recovery gateway helps you perform backup and restore jobs.
Install and activate the disaster recovery gateway
After downloading the gateway and the certificate, install the gateway in your VMware environment. After installation, you can create backup and restore jobs in the Cloud Backup console.
Before you back up VMware VMs, you must add the vCenter Server in the Cloud Backup console.
Back up VMware virtual machines
Create a backup plan in the Cloud Backup console. Configure the plan name, backup cycle, and retention period. Cloud Backup then starts the plan and regularly backs up your VMware VMs according to the schedule.
Restore a VMware virtual machine
If a VMware VM encounters an issue, you can create a restore job to recover the VM to an on-premises server, an ECS instance, or Alibaba Cloud VMware Service.
Billing
VMware backup and disaster recovery incurs the following main fees:
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VMware backup software usage fee: Cloud Backup charges a VMware backup software usage fee based on the total provisioned size of the virtual disks of the backed-up VMware VMs.
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Storage capacity fee: This fee is calculated based on the actual backup vault capacity consumed by the backup data.
View detailed data on the Overview page of the Cloud Backup console.
For specific prices of billable items, see Pricing.
Additional fees may apply for specific backup configurations or operations:
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Outbound traffic fee: Restoring data to an on-premises server over the Internet incurs outbound Internet traffic fees based on the amount of data transferred.
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Restoring a backed-up VMware VM as an ECS image incurs fees for the intermediate ECS instance, image, snapshot, and disk, which are charged by the ECS service. For more information, see ECS billing.
What to do next
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Learn about the preparations for VMware backup and disaster recovery (on-premises VMware environment) and preparations (Alibaba Cloud VMware Service).
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Learn about Cloud Backup best practices.