backup vaults and archive vaults-Cloud Backup(Cloud Backup)-阿里云帮助中心

Cloud Backup provides two types of vaults: backup vaults for operational recovery and archive vaults for long-term retention. Together, they support all data storage scenarios, from hot to cold.

Background information

Cloud Backup provides backup, disaster recovery, and policy-based archive management for a wide range of data sources. These include cloud services such as ECS databases, CPFS, NAS, OSS, and Tablestore, as well as on-premises resources like files, databases, and virtual machines. All backup and archived data is stored in Alibaba Cloud within Cloud Backup vaults.

Backup vaults

A backup vault stores backup data and uses a tiered storage architecture with a Standard tier and an Archive tier to balance access performance and storage costs.

Tiered storage

Standard tier: By default, backup data is stored in the Standard tier after a backup is complete. This tier supports fast access and restoration, making it ideal for data that requires quick restoration or frequent verification for business continuity.
Archive tier: When you enable the automatic archiving feature, data automatically transitions from the Standard tier to the Archive tier based on a backup policy. This provides long-term, low-cost storage ideal for rarely accessed data that must be retained long-term.

Backup vault types

Backup vaults are classified into the following types based on the data source:

Vault type	Description
General Backup Vault	Stores backup data from various sources, including ECS file backups, OSS backups, on-premises NAS backups, Alibaba Cloud NAS backups, CPFS backups, Tablestore backups, local file backups, SAP HANA backups, and VMware backups.
Replication Target Vault (formerly mirror vault)	Serves as the destination for backup replication. It stores backup data replicated from other regions or other Alibaba Cloud accounts.
Database Backup Vault	Stores backup data for databases such as MySQL, Oracle, and SQL Server.
OSS backup vault (30-day free trial)	These vaults store backup data for Alibaba Cloud OSS, NAS, and Tablestore during a 30-day free trial. After you convert to a paid subscription, the vault type changes to General Backup Vault. Similar to a General Backup Vault, backup data is automatically deleted after its retention period expires. If you do not convert to a paid subscription before the free trial ends, the backup vault is retained for an additional 30 days. If you still fail to convert within this grace period, the vault and all of its data will be permanently deleted.
NAS backup vault (30-day free trial)
Tablestore backup vault (30-day free trial)
Container Backup Vault	Stores backup data for Container Service for Kubernetes (ACK) clusters.

Archive vaults

When archiving on-premises data to the cloud using a policy, the data is stored in an archive vault. Based on the storage type, archive vaults are categorized as Archive Storage Vaults and Cold Archive Vaults.

Note

Archive vaults are used only for archiving data from local NAS, HDFS, and S3-compatible storage.

Archive Storage Vault

Archive Storage Vaults provide a highly durable, extremely low-cost data storage service. You must restore data, which takes about 5 minutes, before you can access it. Data retrieval from an Archive Storage Vault incurs restoration fees. This vault type is ideal for long-term data retention scenarios, such as storing archival records, medical images, scientific data, and film production assets. For pricing details, see Cloud Backup Pricing Details.

The system automatically selects the redundancy type based on regional support. In regions that support zone-redundant storage (ZRS), an Archive Storage Vault with ZRS is created by default. In other regions, an Archive Storage Vault with locally redundant storage (LRS) is created. You do not need to manually select the redundancy type.

Currently, the regions that support zone-redundant storage (ZRS) are China (Hangzhou), China (Shanghai), China (Beijing), China (Zhangjiakou), China (Ulanqab), China (Shenzhen), China (Hangzhou) Finance, China (Shanghai) Finance, China (Shenzhen) Finance, China (Beijing) Finance (invitational preview), China (Beijing) Gov 1, Hong Kong (China), Japan (Tokyo), Singapore, Indonesia (Jakarta), Germany (Frankfurt), and Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur).

Cold Archive Vault

Cold Archive Vaults offer a highly durable data storage service with the lowest storage cost of all storage types. You must restore data before accessing it, and data retrieval incurs restoration fees. This vault type is ideal for scenarios that require extremely long-term storage of cold data, such as data retained for compliance, raw data accumulated in big data and AI domains, long-term media assets in the film industry, and archived videos from the online education sector. For pricing details, see Cloud Backup Pricing Details.

Because cold archive storage only supports the locally redundant storage (LRS) method, the system creates an LRS-based Cold Archive Vault by default.

Redundancy types

For backup vaults (including the Standard and Archive tiers) and archive vaults, Cloud Backup uses two data redundancy methods: zone-redundant storage (ZRS) and locally redundant storage (LRS).

Zone-redundant storage (ZRS): Data is replicated across multiple zones within the same region. If one zone becomes unavailable, your data remains accessible.
Locally redundant storage (LRS): Data is replicated across multiple devices within a single zone. This ensures data durability and availability in the event of a hardware failure.

The system automatically selects the redundancy type based on regional support. In regions that support ZRS, a ZRS-enabled backup vault or archive vault is created by default. In other regions, an LRS-based backup vault or archive vault is created. You do not need to manually select the redundancy type.

Cold Archive Vaults only support LRS. Data with LRS redundancy is stored within a single, specific zone. If that zone becomes unavailable, the data will be inaccessible. If your business requires higher availability, we recommend using storage types that support ZRS, such as backup vaults and Archive Storage Vaults, to store your data.

Archive tier vs. archive vaults

Item	Archive tier	Archive Storage Vault	Cold Archive Vault
Applicable feature	Automatic archiving. When you enable this feature in a backup policy, this feature transitions data from a backup vault's Standard tier to its Archive tier.	On-premises data archiving. Archives data from on-premises sources to an Archive Storage Vault.	On-premises data archiving. Archives data from on-premises sources to a Cold Archive Vault.
Type	An Infrequent Access storage tier within a backup vault.	A standalone vault type.	A standalone vault type.
Purpose	Stores backup data that requires long-term retention but is rarely accessed. The automatic archiving feature moves backup data from the Standard tier to the Archive tier to reduce data protection costs.	Provides long-term, low-cost storage for cold data from on-premises environments that is rarely accessed but must be retained.	Provides long-term, low-cost storage for extremely cold data from on-premises environments that is almost never accessed but must be retained.
Billing	All archive storage types (Archive tier, Archive Storage Vault, and Cold Archive Vault) share the same billing logic: Charges are based on the storage capacity used. The minimum billable unit is 64 KB. Objects or files smaller than 64 KB are billed as 64 KB, and objects or files 64 KB or larger are billed based on their actual size. You can view the detailed data size on the Overview page of the Cloud Backup console. Restoring data incurs restoration fees. A minimum retention period applies. Deleting data before this period expires incurs an early deletion fee. For pricing details, see Cloud Backup Pricing Details.

Billing

Using vaults incurs fees. For more information, see Billing methods and billable items.
You can purchase resource plans to receive discounts. For more information, see Resource plan purchase guide.

View vaults

Method 1: Use the Storage Vaults page
1. Go to the Cloud Backup console - Storage Vaults page. In the top-left corner, select your target region.
2. On the Storage Vaults page, view the list of vaults and perform operations as needed.
  The Storage Vaults page displays all backup vaults and archive vaults in Cloud Backup. You can view detailed information for each vault, including its name, ID, type, number of backup plans, source data volume, vault data volume, and status.
Method 2: Use the Overview page of the Cloud Backup console