After backing up an ECS instance, you can quickly restore the entire instance, clone a new ECS instance, or create a new ECS instance across availability zones. This topic describes the differences between Cloud Backup’s ECS instance backup and the snapshot service.
Avoid using both Cloud Backup’s ECS instance backup and the disk snapshot service on the same cloud disk simultaneously to prevent conflicts in snapshot execution times. Choose one backup method based on your business needs by referring to the differences below.
Snapshot service
Alibaba Cloud Snapshot Service is an agentless data backup solution that creates crash-consistent snapshots for all types of cloud disks. Use these snapshots to back up or restore an entire cloud disk. This service offers a convenient and efficient approach to disaster recovery and is commonly used for data backup, image creation, and application disaster recovery. For more information, see Snapshot overview.
ECS instance backup
Alibaba Cloud ECS instance backup is an ECS data management service offered by Cloud Backup, built on top of the cloud disk snapshot service. Cloud Backup provides fully automated ECS instance backup policies, an intuitive configuration and recovery interface, and rich operations such as recovery, cloning, and disaster recovery. It manages data from the perspective of ECS instances rather than individual cloud disks, simplifying ECS data protection and enabling advanced scenarios like test and development environment setup and low-cost geo-disaster recovery. This significantly enhances the value of data protection. For more information, see ECS instance backup overview and Back up an ECS instance.
With an ECS instance as the backup object, you can restore it, clone it into a new ECS instance, or clone its disks.
The ECS instance backup management page includes a backup instance list and a backup history timeline. The instance list shows backup objects, backup plans, backup job status, and available recovery points. It supports operations such as manual backup, automatic backup, recovery, and cloning. The backup history section has two tabs: Instance backup history and Disk backup history, which display backup records along a timeline. Click a recovery point to view details such as creation time, time-to-live (TTL), number of protected disks, and consistency setting (crash consistency). From there, you can perform recovery, cloning, or deletion. At the bottom, plan management features include run plan now, edit plan, and delete plan.
Key differences
ECS instance backup builds on the snapshot service and covers most of its capabilities and use cases. It introduces a simpler, more intuitive ECS-centric operational model, automatically discovers and tracks all cloud disks attached to an ECS instance, and enables flexible recovery and cloning at either the instance or disk level.
Use Cloud Backup’s ECS instance backup when your business requires batch local or geo-redundant backups at the ECS level or when you need to quickly set up and replicate ECS test and development environments.
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Comparison item |
Snapshot service |
Instance backup |
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Cost |
Snapshot fees. For more information, see Snapshot billing. |
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Implementation |
Based on snapshot technology. For more information, see Snapshot overview and Snapshot principles. |
Orchestrates snapshot service APIs, including cloud disk snapshots, consistent snapshot groups, and cross-region snapshot replication. For specific APIs, see Snapshot service API. |
|
Protected object |
Specific cloud disk. Does not support local disks. |
Specific ECS instance. Supports selecting multiple ECS instances in bulk and optionally configuring disks for each instance individually. Does not support local disks. |
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Group backup |
Supports only ESSD cloud disks. |
Supports selecting all cloud disks of an ECS instance. If all disks are ESSD type, Cloud Backup automatically creates a consistent backup group. Otherwise, it creates snapshots at the same time but guarantees only per-disk crash consistency. |
|
Tracking method |
None |
In full-disk backup mode, automatically tracks all cloud disks added or removed after the initial backup. |
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Recovery method |
Cloud disk or image |
Supports full ECS instance rollback or cloning, cross-region cloning, and optionally per-disk recovery or cloning. |
|
Management approach |
Manages disk snapshots from a cloud disk perspective using a table view. |
Manages backup policies from an ECS instance perspective, visualizes backup history graphically, and provides intuitive ECS instance recovery and cloning. |
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Snapshot visibility |
The snapshot console displays all snapshots, including those created by Cloud Backup. |
The Cloud Backup console displays only snapshots created through Cloud Backup. |
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Snapshot limit (per cloud disk) |
256 manual snapshots and 1,000 automatic snapshots. For more information, see Snapshot limits. |
Supports only 256 snapshots. All other limits match those of the snapshot service. For more information, see Snapshot limits. |
References
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Cloud Backup offers resource plans for various backup scenarios, providing greater cost savings. For more information, see Resource plan purchase guide.
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Cloud Backup supports backing up directories and files on ECS instances. You can view and restore data anytime. For more information, see Back up ECS files.
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Cloud Backup supports backing up directories and files from local servers to the cloud. You can view and restore data anytime. For more information, see Back up local files.
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For more product information, see What is Cloud Backup.