Then why do we need refined backup of cloud hosts? 

In the cloud computing environment, most of the company's core business and key data run on cloud hosts. Although cloud vendors usually provide snapshot backup functionality, relying solely on snapshots cannot meet the needs of granular data protection. Fine backup of cloud hosts independently backups of application files and databases within cloud hosts, which can effectively improve data security, recovery capabilities and business continuity.

1. Disadvantages of Cloud Host Snapshot Backup 

Cloud host snapshots are a common backup method, but it has many limitations that are difficult to meet the higher requirements of enterprises for data security and recovery speed:

Snapshot backup vs. Fine backup comparison table

(1) Snapshots are backups of the entire machine, and they cannot be restored in a refined manner.

• Snapshots usually only back up the entire disk, and cannot restore specific application files or database data separately.

• If you only need to restore a certain application directory or database table, you often need to restore the entire cloud host first and then perform manual extraction, which is complicated and time-consuming.

(2) Snapshots rely on cloud vendors, and there are management and compatibility issues

• Different cloud platforms have different snapshot formats and storage strategies, difficult migration, and less flexibility in cross-cloud backup and recovery.

• Since snapshots are usually stored in the cloud vendor's storage system, snapshots may also be inaccessible once cloud vendors fail (such as AWS S3 downtime).

(3) Snapshots are not real backups and there is a potential risk of loss

• Some businesses mistakenly treat snapshots as long-term backups, but snapshots are usually bound to cloud storage, and once the host or storage is deleted, the snapshots are also lost.

• The snapshot storage policy of some cloud vendors is incremental storage. If the underlying snapshot is corrupted, all incremental snapshots that rely on it will fail, resulting in the inability to recover.

2. Real accident case: The limitations of snapshot backup lead to data loss

(1) A business interruption due to snapshot dependence

An Internet company runs database services in the cloud and relies on cloud snapshots for backup. One day, the company's database administrator mistakenly deleted the critical database table.

• Since snapshots are at the machine level, it is impossible to directly restore a single database table.

• They tried to restore the entire database through snapshots, but due to the complex recovery process, it took 6 hours to recover, resulting in long business downtime.

• Afterwards, the company added an independent database backup solution to prevent similar problems from happening again.

(2) A cloud vendor's snapshot storage abnormality causes backup to be unavailable

A financial institution uses cloud storage snapshots as the backup method. However, due to cloud vendor storage failure and multiple snapshots damaged, the institution lost transaction data for nearly two days. Finally, it had to rely on manual logs to recover part of the data, causing serious business losses.

3. The importance of refined backup of cloud hosts

In view of the limitations of the above snapshot backup, cloud host refined backup provides a more flexible and reliable data protection method to ensure the security and recoverability of business data.

(1) Fine-grained recovery to improve business continuity

• Application-level backup: You can make separate backups for specific applications, file directories, or databases without the need to restore the entire cloud host.

• Database-level backup: supports table-level or transaction log backup to avoid business interruptions caused by the recovery of the entire database.

(2) Shorter recovery time objectives (RTO, Recovery Time Objective)

• Compared with snapshot recovery that requires rebuilding the entire cloud host, refined backups can directly restore specific files or databases, shorten recovery time and improve business availability.

(3) Cloud + local multiple storage to enhance data security

• Backup data can be stored in different regions or different cloud platforms to prevent single point of failure.

• Supports hot and cold backup strategies, and the recent data is retained in high-performance storage, archived to low-cost storage for a long time, and optimized storage costs.

(4) Combining automated backup and monitoring to ensure data integrity

• Through automated scheduling, ensure that all critical data is regularly backed up by strategy without manual intervention.

• Provide real-time monitoring and alarms to promptly detect backup failures and avoid data loss.