Creating a Cloud Backup (BUI)

After defining cloud targets, you can create a cloud backup of a share's (filesystem's or LUN's) full or incremental snapshot to a cloud target(s). Depending on how an incremental cloud backup is created, the parent snapshot must be available on both the local system and backed up to the same cloud target, or the parent snapshot does not also have to be available on the same cloud target. An incremental snapshot backup only backs up the difference between the previous snapshot and the current snapshot. Also, snapshot retention holds are preserved when moving the snapshot to another system via cloud snapshot backup.

Creating a cloud backup creates a cloud job with an operation of backup. Snapshots on different systems can have the same name, such as snap2, because snapshots are assigned a unique identification for each system.

There are two formats for cloud backups: "zfs" and "tar". The same snapshot on the same system can be used in two cloud backups: one with the zfs format, and one with the tar format. The formats support the features shown in the following table.

Feature	ZFS Format	Tar Format
Restore on only Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance or an Oracle Solaris server	✓
Restore on any system regardless of operating system		✓
Supports both filesystem and LUN snapshots	✓
Supports filesystem snapshots only		✓
Preserves filesystem properties	✓
Preserves LUN properties	✓
Supports full and incremental backups	✓	✓
Supported within the same Oracle Cloud Infrastructure bucket	✓	✓
High-efficiency compression: If the underlying share is compressed, less data is transferred and, therefore, the backup is faster. Incremental backups are performed at the block level.	✓
Mid-efficiency compression: Files are read and compressed during the backup operation. Incremental backups are performed at the file level. Especially not efficient if a large file is modified because the full file will be part of the incremental backup.		✓

Note:

After a local snapshot is in a cloud backup in your Oracle Cloud Infrastructure account, you can delete it locally, per your policies. However, retain local snapshots that could be parent snapshots for future incremental snapshots.

Filesystem snapshots that contain files created with the file retention feature (not the snapshot retention feature) are subject to the rules governing file retention. For information, see Planning Guidelines for File Retention.

Ensure the cloud target(s) is online.
1. From the Configuration menu, select Services, then Cloud.
2. Click the Targets tab.
3. For each cloud target to be used, ensure its status icon is green. If the status icon is not green, but the cloud data service icon is green, verify that the cloud target properties are valid. See Defining a Cloud Target (BUI).
From the Shares menu, select Shares, then Filesystems or LUNs, as appropriate.
Hover over the share to be backed up, and click its edit icon .
Click the Snapshots tab.
Hover over the snapshot to be backed up, and click its cloud backup icon .

Select a cloud target.

Perform the following steps for each cloud target where the cloud backup will be stored. A new cloud backup job is created for each cloud target.

In the Create Backup dialog box, select a cloud target.
Select a format by clicking either ZFS or Tar.

ZFS is the default value.
To select an incremental snapshot, click the check box for Incremental, and select a parent snapshot.

Depending on whether the Require parent exists property is selected as described next, the parent snapshot must be available on both the local system and backed up to the same cloud target, or the parent snapshot does not also have to be available on the same cloud target. The parent snapshot must also be in the same format as the incremental snapshot: zfs or tar.

For an incremental snapshot and to require that it must have a parent snapshot on the same cloud target, select the check box for Require parent exists. For a parent snapshot and to require that you cannot later delete the cloud backup with the parent snapshot if it has cloud backed-up incremental snapshots (children), select the check box for Require parent exists.

For both parent and incremental snapshots, this property can affect cloud backup restore and delete operations, as described in the following table.

Snapshot Type	Property Selected?	Restore Effect	Delete Effect
Parent	Yes	No effect.	Cannot delete cloud backup with parent snapshot if cloud backed-up incremental snapshots exist.
Parent	No	No effect.	Can delete cloud backup with parent snapshot if cloud backed-up incremental snapshots exist, which would save space on the cloud target.
Incremental	Yes	Parent snapshot must exist on the same cloud target, as well as on the local system.	No effect.
Incremental	No	Parent snapshot must exist on the local system. This allows you to create a cloud backup of an incremental snapshot without its parent snapshot on the same cloud target.	No effect.

Click APPLY.

A Backup Details dialog box is displayed and dynamically shows the backup transfer rate, amount of data transferred, and status in-progress. The status changes to completed after completion. If the write limit property was set for the cloud target, the write traffic bandwidth is limited to the set value when uploading the cloud backup to the cloud target. Click OK to close the dialog box.

To view further progress details, including the completion percentage, from the Configuration menu, select Services, then click the Jobs tab.

The Jobs list contains active and recently completed jobs in the cloud data service, and is in chronological order. The Updates column contains the date and time that the job was created, and the date and time that the backup was started/updated. The Status column indicates the completion percentage, the amount of data transferred, and the backup transfer rate.
To view job details, click on the job in the Jobs list.

Click OK to close the dialog box. After the job has completed, the backup data will be available to other Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance systems configured with the same cloud target.

If the tar format was selected, the cloud backup can be restored on any system, regardless of its operating system, that can access the cloud target.