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Manage backup policies for NAS shares

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About backup policies for NAS shares

Backup policies are rules that define the type of data to back up and the schedule for automatic backups. You can create a backup policy and apply it to one or more backup sets. After you configure the NAS shares for backup, the data from the shares is backed up according to the schedule set in the backup policy. 

A backup policy for a NAS share defines the following:

  • Backup schedule for the NAS share
  • Retention period of historical snapshots.
  • Pre-backup and post-backup scripts.

Note: Phoenix creates a default backup policy for your setup. The default backup policy is configured to back up all file types. You can assign the default backup policy to one or more backup sets. You can also update or delete this backup policy.

Best practices for creating a backup policy

  • You can create as many backup policies as you want, depending on the number of NAS shares on your NAS device and the frequency at which data changes on the NAS shares. For example, for NAS shares that change frequently, you can create a backup policy, and define a schedule for a weekly backup for a longer duration, along with short-burst backups every second day.
  • Druva recommends that you create separate policies for SMB and NFS shares.
  • The backup policy defines the backup schedules of NAS shares. The schedule that you set must be according to the volume and frequency of data change on the NAS shares. The schedule must also take into account the availability of bandwidth for data transmission to Druva Cloud. If you expect a large dataset during backups, you can schedule backups to run during off-peak hours (such as weekends or after a workday). 
  • You can consider the criticality of data and the frequency at which the data changes and is restored while configuring the retention policy. The important factors to consider while configuring retention are:
    • Legal requirements
    • Storage costs
    • Type of data 

Note: The backup schedule that you define in a backup policy also depends on your organization's policies. 

About retention

Retention defines the rules for retaining your backups (snapshot or recovery point)  within the storage. Use the retention period to define the duration for which you want to retain your historical backups.

The objective of retention is to keep important data for future access, depending on how critical it is. Retention also ensures that backups that are no longer required are cleaned from your storage periodically, resulting in less storage utilization and costs.

Retention should consider the value of your data and the compliance requirements. The different types of data will be retained for different durations. For example, a bank's retention period for customers' financial records is different from facilities inventory records.

The main factors to consider while defining a retention period are:

  • Compliance requirements
  • Storage costs
  • Type of data

Retention period settings

Druva Phoenix follows the Grandfather-Father-Son (GFS) retention model wherein, in case of an overlap, the retention setting of the longer period (Son-Father-Grandfather relation) is considered. The snapshot is expired as per the settings of the higher period.  For example, in case there is an overlap between the daily and weekly retention period, the weekly retention period is considered. So daily is the smallest unit and weekly overrides daily > monthly overrides weekly  > yearly overrides monthly. 

Also, Druva Phoenix follows the Gregorian calendar for tracking days.

While backup schedules are configured on an hourly, daily, or weekly basis the last snapshot created by the backups on that particular day will be retained as per the retention setting.   

You can define the following durations to retain snapshots.

Retention Period Description
Daily snapshots

Druva Phoenix retains all the snapshots that are created for the number of days specified in Daily snapshots.  

Druva Phoenix considers midnight as the end of a day.

If you have configured Druva Phoenix to back up your server multiple times within a day, Druva Phoenix retains all the snapshots for the days specified.
Weekly snapshots (Son)

The number of weekly snapshots that Druva Phoenix should retain. Druva Phoenix treats the latest snapshot in the week as the weekly snapshot.

Druva Phoenix considers midnight on Sunday as the end of the week.
Monthly snapshots (Father)

The number of monthly snapshots that Druva Phoenix should retain. Druva Phoenix treats the latest snapshot in the month as the monthly snapshot.

Druva Phoenix considers midnight of the last day of a month as the end of the month.
Yearly snapshots (Grandfather)

The number of yearly snapshots that Druva Phoenix should retain. Druva Phoenix treats the latest snapshot in the year as the yearly snapshot.

Druva Phoenix considers the midnight of the last day of the year as the end of the year.

The snapshot name displayed on the Phoenix Management Console is snapshot creation time as per the server time zone, on which the backup occurred. Druva Phoenix considers the time zone of the server for retaining the snapshots as per the retention setting.

Default retention period settings 

If you are registering the server under default organization, Druva Phoenix provides a default backup policy with the following retention settings:

  • Daily snapshots: 14 days
  • Weekly revisions: 4 weeks
  • Monthly revisions: 3  months
  • Yearly revisions: 3  years

The following diagram illustrates the snapshots that will be available on a given day ( Feb 9 in this example) based on the retention settings you have configured. In this example the policy is created and backups start on Dec 30 of the previous year.

Retention example.png

On 9 Feb you will have 17 recovery points or snapshots to restore as described in the table. 

Note: Daily is the smallest unit and weekly overrides daily and monthly overrides weekly and yearly overrides monthly.

Recovery points resulting from

Description
Daily retention setting You will have 11 ( 14 daily less 2 weekly less 1 monthly)  recovery points (starting from 27 Jan) created due to the daily retention settings.
Weekly retention setting You will have 4 recovery points for 14 Jan, 21 Jan, 28 Jan and 4 Feb created due to the weekly settings.

The weekly recovery points that coincide with the daily recovery points (28 Jan and 4 Feb) will be considered and retained as per the weekly setting. So, even though the daily retention period expires for these dates the recovery points will be retained as per the weekly settings (4 weeks).
Monthly retention setting You will have 1 monthly recovery point of 31 Jan. This recovery point will be available for the next 3 months as it is a monthly retention point. So even though the 14 days daily retention period expires after 9 Feb, the recovery point will be available for the next 3  months.
Yearly retention setting You will have one recovery point for 31 Dec due to the yearly retention setting. This recovery point will be available for 3 years.

Impact of retention period settings on recovery point objective (RPO)

In continuation with the example above, so let us say malware was detected on 9 Feb evening.  After investigation, it was discovered that the data till 7 Feb is corrupted.  In that case, the recovery point available to you will be of 6 Feb which is available due to the daily snapshot.  However, there could be a data loss of data backed between 7 Feb and 9 Feb.

Retention Setting and RPO.png

Considerations

  • Any changes that you make to the existing retention policies will be applied to all the new as well as the existing snapshots.
  • Retention periods are applicable for snapshots that reside on Phoenix CloudCache and Druva Cloud.
  • Druva Phoenix runs a retention expiration algorithm to delete the snapshots that have crossed the expiration period. This algorithm does not delete thawed snapshots. For more information, see Snapshots.

Add a backup policy

This section provides instructions to create a backup policy for NAS shares.

Before adding a backup policy for NAS shares, ensure you have read:

Add a backup policy

Add a backup policy from the Backup Policies page

  1. Log in to the Phoenix Management Console.

  2. Click the drop-down next to All Organizations and select the organization that has the NAS device.

  3. On the menu bar click Protect > NAS.

  4. In the navigation pane on the left, click Backup Policies.

  5. In the right pane, click New Backup Policy.

    NewBackupPolicy.png
Add a backup policy while creating a backup set for a NAS share

  1. Log in to the Phoenix Management Console.

  2. Click the drop-down next to All Organizations and select the organization that has the NAS device.

  3. On the menu bar click Protect > NAS.

  4. In the device-specific navigation pane on the left, select the NAS device from the DEVICE drop-down list.

  5. The right pane lists all the NAS shares on the selected NAS device.

  6. Select a share and then click Create Backup Set.

  7. In the Create Backup Set dialog box, in the Backup Settings section, click New Backup Policy.

    Create Backup Set - New Backup Policy.png

Creating a backup policy

Step 1: General information

In the Overview section, enter the following details, and then click Next.

New Backup Policy - General tab.png

Field Description
Name Name of the backup policy that is being created.
Description (optional) A short description of the backup policy. This field is optional.
Step 2: Backup Schedule information

In the Backup Schedule section, enter the following details:

backupscheduleNAS2.png

Field Description
Backup Frequency Select the days on which you want the backups to run
Start at (Server Time zone) Enter a short description of the backup policy
Backup Window(Hrs)

The duration after which you want backup operations to stop.

For example, if you set Start at to 9 AM and you set the Backup Window to 2 hours, backups of your NAS shares start at 9 AM and stop at 11 AM, even if they do not complete.
Max. Bandwidth

The maximum bandwidth that the NAS proxy can consume while backing up data to Phoenix.  

A scheduled backup job consumes the assigned bandwidth. A manually triggered backup job consumes the available bandwidth on your network.

Note: The maximum bandwidth that a backup job can consume is 2 Gbps (2000 Mbps).

Add Schedule: Use it to create more schedules. Click Add Schedule as many times as the number of schedules you want to create. 

Ignore backup window for the first backup: Ignore the backup window for the first backup job. You can disable this option to enforce the backup window for the first backup job. The first backup can exceed the backup window because it needs to scan a large number of files. We recommend keeping this option enabled to ensure that the first backup is successful.

The Remove icon is displayed when you have added more than one schedule. 
removeNAS.png

In the Advanced Settings section enter the following details, and click Next.

advancedsettingsNAS1.png
 

Field Description

Smart Scan

For NAS share backups, you can enable Smart Scan if you have a lot of files that haven’t changed recently. Skipping these files makes incremental backups faster. 

Smart Scan Settings

You can select the following settings if Smart Scan is enabled. Smart scans follow the backup schedule for the policy.
Skip Scanning ACLs or permissions for unmodified files Select this option to skip scanning the Access Control Lists or permissions of files that have not changed recently.
Only scan files created/modified in the last X months Only scan files that were created or modified in the last <number of > months. You can enter 3, 6, 9, or 12 months for the duration. All files that are older than the specified duration are skipped from Smart Scans.
Full Scan Schedule

Even if you enable smart scan, you can still run a full scan. You can choose to run a full scan every 24 weeks or less. We recommend that you run a full scan every four weeks. Also, specify the preferred day, time, duration, and bandwidth.

Note: If you change the Backup Content setting under the backup set, the subsequent scan is a full scan.
Step 3: Retention information

In the Retention tab, enter the duration for which the daily, monthly, weekly and yearly snapshots should be retained, enable Long Term Retention (LTR), and click Next.

NAS_BackupPolicyLTR.PNG

Notes: Any changes that you make to the existing retention policies will be applied to all the new as well as the existing snapshots.

Enable Long Term Retention (LTR) 

For backup sets that need to be retained for a year or longer, you can enable Long Term Retention. Snapshots older than 15 days are moved to the cold tier. Data stored in the cold tier incurs a 20% lower fee. For more information, see About Long Term Retention, and Enabling Long Term Retention.

Step 4: Pre/Post Script Settings information

In the Pre/Post Script Settings section, perform the following tasks to execute custom pre-backup and post backup scripts, and click Finish. Configuring pre/post scripts in NAS share backups is optional.

Pre-post script settings.png

Field Description
Windows Proxy
Enable Scripts Enable pre-backup and post-backup scripts execution for SMB share backups. When you enable scripts, the Scripts location field gets enabled.
Scripts Location Enter the location of the folder that contains the pre-backup and post-backup scripts on the NAS proxy.
Linux Proxy
Enable Scripts Enable pre-backup and post-backup scripts for NFS share backups.When you enable scripts, the Scripts location field gets enabled.
Scripts Location Enter the location of the folder that contains the pre-backup and post-backup scripts on the NAS proxy.
Skip Backup if
Pre-script is not present at the specified location Select the option to skip the backup if a pre-backup script is not available at the specified script location.
Pre-script execution fails Select the option to skip the backup if a pre-backup script execution fails.
Abort pre/post script execution if it does not complete in X Minutes/Hours Enter the duration in minutes or hours after which Phoenix should abort the pre-backup or post-backup script execution. You can leave this field blank if you don’t want to enter a timeout value. In that case the pre-backup and post-backup scripts run until the job is canceled or the backup window expires.

Copy as NAS share backup policy

  1. Login to the Phoenix Management Console

  2. On the menu bar click the drop-down next to All Organizations, and select the organization that has the NAS device.

  3. On the menu bar click Protect > NAS

  4. In the navigation pane on the left, click Backup Policies.

  5. In the right pane, select the backup policy that you want to copy to a new policy, and click Use as template.

    Use as template.png
  6. In the New Backup Policy dialog box, enter the following information:

    New Backup Policy.png
     
    Field Description
    New backup policy name The name for the new backup policy.
    Description (optional) An optional description of the new policy.

  7. Click Save.

Note: You can also copy a backup policy from the Manage > Backup Policies page.

Edit a backup policy

  1. Login to the Phoenix Management Console

  2. On the menu bar click All Organizations, and then select the organization that has the NAS device.

  3. On the menu bar click Protect > NAS

  4. In the navigation pane on the left, click Backup Policies.

  5. In the right pane, click the backup policy that needs to be edited.

  6. In the Summary tab, you can click Edit in the following sections :

    editNAS.png
     

    Overview section To edit the policy name and description.
    Backup Schedule section

    To edit the:

    • Backup Frequency
    • Start At
    • Backup Window
    • Max Bandwidth
    • Add Schedule
    • Select or deselect the Ignore backup window for the first backup
    • Enable/Disable Smart Scan and the other Smart Scan settings.

    For more details, see the Creating a backup policy.
    Retention section To edit the duration for which the Daily, Monthly, Weekly and Yearly snapshots should be retained. Toggle Enable Long Term Retention to enable or disable LTR for the backup policy.
    Pre/Post Script Settings section

    To enable or disable pre-backup or post-backup script execution. You can alter the pre-backup or post-backup script path. You can also specify whether to skip backup if the pre-backup script is not present at the specified location or if pre-backup script execution fails. You can also set or alter the script time-out value.

    For more details, see Pre/Post Script Settings information.

     

  7. Once the edits are complete, click Save.

You can delete a backup policy only after 7 days of the deletion of the last backup set mapped to the policy.

  1. Login to the Phoenix Management Console.
  2. On the menu bar click the drop-down next to All Organizations, and select the organization that has the NAS device.
  3. On the menu bar click Protect > NAS.
  4. In the navigation pane on the left, click Backup Policies.
  5. Click the policy that you want to delete.
  6. On the Backup Policies details page, click Delete.
    deleteNAS.png
  7. In the Delete Policy confirmation dialog box, click Continue.

Note: You cannot delete a policy associated with one or more backup sets. Associate backup sets with other policies before deleting the policy.

Delete a backup policy from Manage Backup Policies

You can delete a backup policy only after 7 days of the deletion of the last backup set mapped to the policy.

  1. Log on to Phoenix Management Console.
  2. On the menu bar, click All Organizations, and select the required organization from the drop-down list.
  3. On the menu bar, click Manage > Backup Policies. 
  4. Click the backup policy that you want to remove.
  5. In the backup policy details page, click Delete.

Note: You cannot delete a policy associated with one or more backup sets. Associate backup sets with other policies before deleting the policy.