Backing up virtual machines is one of the areas that needs to be given special attention when optimizing company costs. We tell you how you can set up backups in the cloud and save your budget.
Databases are a valuable asset for any company. This is largely why virtual machines have become popular. Users can work in a virtual environment that provides protection against physical seizure of data and leaks of confidential information.
Most large and medium-sized companies depend on VM in one way or another. They store a huge amount of critical information. Therefore, it is so important to take care of creating backups so that one fine day βoopsβ does not happen and the database replenished for years does not suddenly turn out to be damaged or inaccessible.
As a rule, companies create backup copies of their VMs and store them in separate data centers. And if suddenly the primary information processing center suddenly fails, it will be possible to quickly recover from the backup. Ideally, when the backup is stored in different data centers, how does . However, most providers cannot offer such a service or ask for additional money for it. As a result, storing backups results in such a big penny.
However, judicious use of the capabilities of the cloud can reduce the financial burden.
Why the cloud?
VM backups are conveniently stored on cloud platforms. There are many solutions on the market that simplify the process of backing up and restoring virtual machines. With their help, you can organize uninterrupted data recovery from virtual machines and provide stable service for applications that depend on this data.
The backup process can be automated depending on which files and how often you need to save data. The "cloud" does not have any rigid framework. A company can choose the features and performance that suit their business needs and pay only for the resources they consume.
The local infrastructure does not have this capability. You have to pay immediately for all the equipment (even idle ones), and if there is a need to increase performance, you have to buy more servers, which leads to increased costs. Cloud4Y offers 4 ways to reduce your database backup costs.
So how do you save?
Incremental copy
The company should make regular backups of critical data. But this data grows over time. As a result, each subsequent backup takes up more and more space and takes more time to load into storage. You can simplify the process by keeping incremental backups.
The incremental approach assumes that you backup only once or at regular intervals (depending on your backup strategy). Each subsequent backup contains only the changes made to the original backup. Because backups are less frequent and only new changes are backed up, organizations don't have to pay for big cloud data transfers.
Limit swap files or partitions
Sometimes the virtual machine's RAM may not be enough to store applications and OS data. In this case, the OS occupies some part of the hard disk to store additional data. This data is called the swap file or swap partition in Windows and Linux, respectively.
Typically, swap files are 1,5 times the size of RAM. The data in these files changes regularly. And every time a backup is made, these files are also backed up. So it would be better to exclude these files from the backup. They will take up too much space in the cloud, as the system will save them with each backup (the files are constantly changing, after all!).
In general, the point is to back up only the data that the company really needs. And unnecessary ones, like the swap file, should not be backed up.
Duplicating and archiving backups
Backups of virtual machines weigh a lot, so you have to reserve more space in the "cloud". Therefore, you can save money by reducing the amount of backups. This is where deduplication can help. This is the process of copying only the changed data blocks and replacing the copies of the unchanged blocks with a reference to the original blocks. You can also use various archivers to compress the final backup to save even more memory.
This topic is especially relevant if you follow the 3-2-1 rule regarding backup storage. The rule states that to ensure reliable data storage, you must have at least THREE backups stored in TWO different storage formats, while ONE of the copies must be stored outside the main storage.
This principle of ensuring fault tolerance implies redundancy in data storage, so reducing the backup volume will be clearly useful.
GFS Storage Policy (Grandfather-Father-Son)
How is the procedure for creating and storing backups organized in most companies? But no way! Organizations create backups and⦠forget about them. For months, or even years. This results in unnecessary overhead for data that is never used. The best way to deal with this is to use retention policies. These policies determine how many backups can be stored in the cloud at one time.
The simplest backup storage policy is explained by the first-in-first-out principle. With this policy, a certain number of backups are kept and once the limit is reached, the oldest one is deleted to make room for the newest one. But this strategy is not entirely effective, especially if you need to provide the maximum recovery points in the minimum amount of storage possible. In addition, there are legal and corporate regulations that require long-term data retention.
You can solve this problem using the GFS (Grandfather-Father-Son) policy. "Son" is the most frequent backup. For example, daily. And βgrandfatherβ is the rarest, for example, monthly. And every time a new daily backup is created, it becomes the child of the previous week's weekly backup. This model gives the company more restore points with the same limited storage space.
If you need to store information for a long time, there is a lot of it, but it is never actually requested, you can use the so-called ice cold storage. The cost of storing data in it is low, but if a company requests this data, then you will have to pay. It's like a distant dark closet. It contains a lot of things that will be nothing in 10-20-50 years. But until you get to one, you will spend a lot of time. In Cloud4Y, such storage is called "Β».
Conclusion
Backup is a mandatory security element for any business. Keeping backups in the cloud is very convenient, but sometimes the service is expensive. Using the methods we have listed, you can reduce the monthly costs of the company.
What else is useful you can read in the Cloud4Y blog
β
β
β
β
β
Subscribe to our -channel, so as not to miss the next article! We write no more than twice a week and only on business.
Source: habr.com