What is Cloud Backup

Prerequisites

Before you read this topic, you should understand the following concepts:

• What is a data center?

• What is cloud storage?

• What is data backup?

• What is object storage?

• What is file storage?

Scenarios

• Back up data on the cloud

  You can efficiently back up important data to a backup vault over the Alibaba Cloud internal network. Supported data sources include ECS files, self-managed MySQL, Oracle, SQL Server, and SAP HANA databases, NAS file systems, OSS buckets, and Tablestore instances. You can perform real-time backups of MySQL and Oracle databases with a near-zero recovery point objective (RPO). In addition, you can back up data from other cloud platforms to a backup vault on Alibaba Cloud.

• Back up on-premises data to the cloud

  You can back up on-premises data from servers, NAS file systems, VMware virtual machines, and databases directly to a backup vault and configure flexible backup policies.

• Cross-region or cross-account backup and ECS cross-region disaster recovery

  • You can implement cross-region or cross-account disaster recovery for your backup data using cross-region backup or cross-account replication of backup vaults. You can also use cross-account backup to add multiple layers of data protection.

  • To meet different recovery point objective (RPO) and recovery time objective (RTO) requirements, Cloud Backup provides two types of cross-region disaster recovery solutions for ECS instances: continuous replication and async replication of cloud disks.

• Migrate VMware VMs to the cloud

  You can migrate on-premises VMware virtual machines to the cloud without an agent. Cloud Backup provides a simple, easy-to-use, and fast incremental migration method.

• Archive data from on-premises NAS, HDFS, and S3-compatible storage based on policies

  You can archive large volumes of files from on-premises NAS, Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS), and S3-compatible storage to an archive vault or a cold archive vault based on policies. You can configure flexible archive policies. Cloud Backup also supports full-text search of file content in both local storage and archive vaults, with results returned in seconds.

Data sources supported for backup

Data sources supported for policy-based archiving

Cloud Backup fees

Cloud Backup supports the pay-as-you-go billing method and subscription resource plans. For more information about the billable items of Cloud Backup, see Billing methods and billable items of Cloud Backup.

Activate the service

Activate Cloud Backup

• You are not charged for activating Cloud Backup. You are charged for using Cloud Backup features.

• Activating the Cloud Backup service enables it, but does not automatically back up any data. We strongly recommend that you use Cloud Backup features to back up your important data. If data is lost or accidentally deleted and you have not created a backup, the data cannot be recovered.

Deactivate the service

• You cannot directly deactivate the service after it is activated. If you only activate the service but do not use it, no fees are incurred.

• If you have incurred fees and want to stop using this product and stop billing, see How do I stop billing for Cloud Backup?. Note: Backup data cannot be recovered after it is deleted.

• To view the details of your bills, see Resource usage and bills.

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