Summary
Snapshots and Backups provide data protection for Virtual Machines (VMs). Both methods can be used to restore a full VM to a known state. So how do you know which is the best choice when requesting data protection for your application? This article will help you decide what method works best for you.
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Snapshot vs Backup
Snapshots and Backups provide data protection for Virtual Machines (VMs). Both methods can be used to restore a full VM to a known state. So how do you know which is the best choice when requesting data protection for your application?
Snapshots
- Snapshots are recommended for situations where you need to quickly fall back to a known state such as before a new application install, upgrade, or patching.
- Snapshots are usually taken immediately before a change/update takes place.
- Snapshots can only be used for full VM restores or individual hard drives. Snapshots cannot be used for file level restores.
- Snapshots “freeze” the disk image for the VM and then track all changes to a snapshot chain.
- This takes up disk space on the hypervisor and over time can lead to performance degradation due to snapshot chain growth.
- Snapshots are not recommended for long term retention. Users will be given the option to retain snapshots for 7 or 14 days.
Backups
- Backups are meant for long term retention and run on a daily schedule. Most VMs are backed up every 12 hours, or 2 times per day.
- Like Snapshots, Backups can be used to restore full VM images and VM hard drives.
- Backups can also be used to search for and restore individual files/folders.
- Backups are saved to local storage on the Rubrik appliance in ARDC. When the backup is complete, it is immediately archived to Glacier Instant Access in AWS.
- The local copy is kept onsite for 14 days, which allows for rapid restores. A typical restore will take 15-30 minutes, but in an application down situation we can restore a copy directly on the Rubrik appliance in less than 5 minutes.
- OIT will have to move the VM off the Rubrik appliance at a later date.
- After 14 days, we can restore from the archive. The archived copy is kept for 95 days.
- Restores from archive take longer because Rubrik has to download the information from AWS first. Restores from archive typically take 45 minutes to 2 hours to complete.