Amazon Web Services has launched a new backup management toolkit dubbed AWS Backup that provides a centralised backup console, a set of backup APIs, and a command line interface to manage backups across six core AWS services.
The new offering, available now, allows users to automate and consolidate backup tasks previously performed service-by-service, removing the need to create custom scripts and manual processes. It also encrypts data in-transit and at rest using keys managed by the AWS Key Management Service (KMS), the company said.
The new offering lets users shift data from a “warm” storage tier backed by Amazon S3 to a lower-cost “cold” storage tier (Glacier) with a restore time of three-five hours.
AWS Backup: What Does it Support?
Users can currently use AWS Backup to centrally configure backup policies and monitor backup activity for AWS resources including Elastic Block Storage (EBS), Relational Database Service (RDS), DynamoDB, Elastic File System (EFS) and Storage Gateway.
Support for other AWS solutions is coming soon.
For “Fast Builders”
Vill Vass, VP of Storage, Automation, and Management Services, AWS, said: “As the cloud has become the default choice for customers of all sizes, it has attracted two distinct types of builders. Some are tinkerers who want to tweak and fine tune the full range of AWS services into a desired architecture, and other builders are drawn to the same breadth and depth of functionality in AWS, but are willing to trade some of the service granularity to start at a higher abstraction layer, so they can build even faster.”
He added: “We designed AWS Backup for this second type of builder who has told us that they want one place to go for backups versus having to do it across multiple, individual services. Today, we are proud to make AWS Backup available with support for block storage volumes, databases, and file systems, and over time, we plan to support additional AWS services.”
Handy for Compliance
The company touted the new offering’s use to support business and regulatory compliance requirements, rolling out State Street Corporation (a major provider of financial services solutions to institutional investors) as a case study.
“We… must provide data storage solutions that ensure the integrity and availability of backup data as stipulated by the FFIEC IT examination handbook,” said Nauman Noor, Managing Director, State Street Corporation in an AWS release.
“Meeting these regulations requires us to develop and maintain an internal serverless application to enable timely and auditable backups across the AWS services we use.”
He added: “[AWS Backup gives us] a single pane of glass to audit our backup processes across our AWS environment, mitigating the need for custom applications and thus, easing our effort to aid data integrity and availability. The ability to set backup policies for automated backup scheduling and backup retention provides us flexibility to address the needs for varying levels of criticality in a cost effective and consistent manner.”
Rackspace is also using the service, with the company’s Senior VP Prashanth Chandrasekar saying it will “provide customers greater operational efficiency, allowing us to simplify the process for supporting our customers’ auditing and compliance requirements.”
See also: Five Key Takeaways from AWS’s Re:Invent Summit
