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Druva Documentation

About File-Level Search

The File Level Search functionality allows you to search file systems within Amazon EC2 EBS snapshots, and to retrieve or download these files, if necessary. This allows users to recover files that may have been deleted, or to confirm whether a file exists, for governance purposes.

Why File Level Search

One of the most useful features offered by AWS is the ability to utilize EBS snapshots as part of the backup process. Snapshots essentially capture incremental block-level changes to EBS volumes, eliminating the need to repeatedly perform a complete backup. However, one of the downsides of backing up data as EBS snapshots is the complexity of search and retrieval of individual files. The ability to recover a single image or database file rather than an entire volume or instance is important, especially if a user is simply trying to confirm that a volume contains the files they wish to restore.

Druva CloudRanger’s granular search feature can prove to be invaluable when recovering files that have been accidentally deleted or lost due to migration errors. You can use this functionality to recover files that may have been deleted or to confirm whether a file exists, as part of compliance and governance. For more information, see Perform File-Level Search for Backups.

Indexing Snapshots for File-Level Search

File Level Search is an optional setting that can be enabled via your Druva CloudRanger account settings. The file indexing settings will help define the accuracy of file search in backups; a higher indexing frequency will also ensure accurate search results, while also impacting costs. Druva CloudRanger uses temporary EC2 instances to scan and index files in your snapshots.

When enabled, this creates an S3 bucket per user account to store the file system metadata of the target backups. The CloudFormation scripts will then need to be updated to allow access to the S3 bucket.

Note: The File Level Search feature is only available with the Enterprise and Elite Editions.
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