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Overview

The Cloud Backup service offers backup and recovery for all Compute-as-a-Service (CaaS), Managed Hosting and on-premise servers. The Cloud Backup service is provisioned using the Cloud API, the CaaS Admin UI or the Cloud Backup Service Portal.

Plans

Cloud Backup is offered in three different Plans:

1. Cloud Backup Essentials

2. Cloud Backup Advanced

3. Cloud Backup Enterprise

Cloud Backup Essentials

The Cloud Backup Essentials Plan has the following features:

• Choice of pre-configured retention periods and backup windows

• Backup data stored on separate storage arrays in the same data center.

• Where a second data center is present in the region, secondary data copy is available.

• Reports on backup status, coverage and success rates.

• Backup and restore files and folders either in-place or out-of-place.

• Files and folder restores are available as a self-service function through the backup client helper application. 

Cloud Backup Advanced

The same features as the Cloud Backup Essentials Plan, as well as:

• Backup and restore operating system state either in-place or out-of-place.

• Operating system state restores are available as a self-service function through the CaaS Administrative UI, Cloud Backup portal, and Cloud API.

Cloud Backup Enterprise

The same features as the Cloud Backup Advanced Plan, as well as:

• Backup and restore supported applications either in-place or out-of-place.

• Some application restores are available as a self-service function through the backup client helper application, while others require a Service Request to be submitted.

Choice of Retention Periods

When enabling backup for a specific Server, the Service Administrator can choose a preferred retention period from a pre-defined list. The choice of retention period defines the maximum ‘age’ of the backup data. Once a retention period is chosen, it can be changed at any time via the Service Portal, Admin UI or Cloud API.

Each retention period consists of a collection of retention policies that shows the recovery points available based on the age of a backup. The retention policies for each retention period are pre-configured; they cannot be customized

For additional information on retention, please see the Retention Cycles section of the following document: Introduction to Cloud Backup Metering and Billing

Secondary Copy of Backup Data

The main rationale for having a secondary data copy is for compliance and organizations needing an “offsite” copy.

Data centers in the same Geographic Region will be configured as secondary data locations for each other. For example, Ashburn (NA1) will be configured as a secondary location for NA5 (West Coast) and vice versa. If there is no other data center in the same Geographic Region, a secondary copy may not be available.

When enabling backup for a specific server, a Client Administrator can optionally choose a location for a secondary copy of the backup data from a list of pre-defined available secondary copy locations.

When choosing a secondary copy, charges apply for storage of the secondary copy of the backup, but no charges apply for any bandwidth required to transfer the data between the data centers. Application Specific Backups (Enterprise Plan Only)

Application Specific Backups (Enterprise Plan Only)

The Enterprise Plan includes the ability to deploy backup clients that are designed to back up specific applications. Multiple application specific backup clients can be deployed on a server at no additional charge to support multiple applications that might be running on the server.

The currently supported application specific backup clients are:

The advantage of using an application specific backup client versus a simple file system backup is the application specific backup client provides "in-context" information. For example, in Active Directory, the backup client is capable of backing up the Active Directory database, which allows you to restore an individual OU or Group in the case of accidental deletion; a task which is quite complex (if not impossible) to perform from a file system backup.

While the Cloud Backup service supports a wide range of applications for backup and restore, only a sub-set of these applications, representing the most commonly used, are available for self-service restore. Applications which are available for self-service restore (see table below) can be restored via a helper application which guides the client through the restore process.

The currently supported data restoration methods for application specific backup clients are:

Cloud Backup Billing

Each Plan is charged at its own rate (Refer to your Cloud Backup pricing for specifics), however, the methodology for each Plan is the same:

• Each day that a server is enabled for a specific Plan generates a ‘Backup Day’ for that Plan. For example, if during a given day a client has two servers enabled for the Essentials Plan and three servers enabled for the Enterprise Plan, that day will generate 2 Essential Backup Days and 3 Enterprise Backup Days of usage.

• A full day is billed if a server is enabled for Cloud Backup for any portion of the day. For example, if a server is enabled for the Essentials Plan at 11:59 PM then this will be counted as a full day for the Essentials Backup Days.

• All of the storage utilized to store the retained backups for a specific Plan is also reported daily in GB for each Essentials, Advanced or Enterprise Plan

• The storage requirement for a server is a function of the size of the server, the retention period selected and the amount of daily change on that server. 

• The backup data storage is calculated after compression and de-duplication.

• The backup data storage is calculated including all copies that are saved on storage media for all of the backup clients on the server.

For all billing and reporting, the time zone reported is the time zone for that Geographic Region, not the specific data center location in which the backup takes place. Each Geographic Region provides reporting and billing based on the local time zone of the Geographic Region, including adjustments for any local daylight savings time customs).

The time zones are as follows:

• North America (NA): Eastern Time (follows local daylight savings time)

• Canada (CA): Eastern Time (follows local daylight savings time)

• Europe (EU): Central European Time (follows local daylight savings time)

• Middle-East Africa (AF): South African Standard Time

• Australia (AU): Australia Eastern Time (follows local daylight savings time)

• Asia-Pacific (AP): Japan Standard Time

The monthly Fees payable for the Cloud Backup service will be invoiced in arrears and calculated as follows:

• Fees per server = Plan Fees + Usage Fees

• Plan Fees = Plan Daily Rate x Backup Days (or part) in the month the Plan was used on that server

• Usage Fees = Plan Usage Rate x Backup Data Storage in GB x Backup Days (or part) in the month the Plan was used on that server.

Cloud Backup Reporting

The Cloud Backup service provides usage reporting for each Plan and server by Geographic Region. Reporting is provided for all the data centers and client locations in that Geographic Region, even if none of the servers in that data center or location are using the Cloud Backup service.
When a report contains a data center or location that have no servers using the Cloud Backup service, the Backup Days or GB values in that report will be shown as zero values for the Plans and servers.