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BlueXP backup and recovery
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Learn about BlueXP backup and recovery

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The BlueXP backup and recovery service provides efficient, secure, and cost-effective data protection for NetApp ONTAP data, Kubernetes persistent volumes, databases, and virtual machines, both on premises and in the cloud. Backups are automatically generated and stored in an object store in your public or private cloud account.

The service performs block-level, incremental-forever replication and preserves all storage efficiencies, which significantly reduces the amount of data that's replicated and stored. Additionally, you pay only for what's protected and use the lowest-cost storage tiers available, which makes BlueXP backup and recovery very cost effective.

When necessary, you can restore an entire volume from a backup to the same or different working environment. When backing up ONTAP data, you can also choose to restore a folder or one or more files from a backup to the same or different working environment.

Learn more about BlueXP backup and recovery.

Backup and recovery can be used to:

  • Back up and restore ONTAP volume data from Cloud Volumes ONTAP and on-premises ONTAP systems. See detailed features here.

  • Back up and restore Kubernetes persistent volumes. See detailed features here.

  • Back up the application-consistent Snapshots from on-premises ONTAP systems using BlueXP backup and recovery for applications. See detailed features here.

  • Back up datastores to the cloud and restore virtual machines back to the on-premises vCenter using BlueXP backup and recovery for VMware. See detailed features here.

Watch a quick demo

Tip When the BlueXP Connector is deployed in a government region in the cloud, or in a site without internet access (a dark site), BlueXP backup and recovery only supports backup and restore operations from ONTAP systems. When using these types of deployment methods, BlueXP backup and recovery does not support backup and restore operations from Kubernetes clusters, applications, or virtual machines.

How BlueXP backup and recovery works

When you enable BlueXP backup and recovery on a Cloud Volumes ONTAP or on-premises ONTAP system, the service performs a full backup of your data. Volume snapshots are not included in the backup image. After the initial backup, all additional backups are incremental, which means that only changed blocks and new blocks are backed up. This keeps network traffic to a minimum.

The following image shows the relationship among components:

A diagram showing how BlueXP backup and recovery communicates with the volumes on the source systems and the destination object storage where the backup files are located.

Where backups reside

Backup copies are stored in an object store that BlueXP creates in your cloud account. There's one object store per cluster/working environment, and BlueXP names the object store as follows: netapp-backup-clusteruuid. Be sure not to delete this object store.

  • In AWS, BlueXP enables the Amazon S3 Block Public Access feature on the S3 bucket.

  • In Azure, BlueXP uses a new or existing resource group with a storage account for the Blob container. BlueXP blocks public access to your blob data by default.

  • In GCP, BlueXP uses a new or existing project with a storage account for the Google Cloud Storage bucket.

  • In StorageGRID, BlueXP uses an existing storage account for the object store bucket.

  • In ONTAP S3, BlueXP uses an existing user account for the S3 bucket.

When are backups taken

  • Hourly backups start 5 minutes past the hour, every hour.

  • Daily backups start just after midnight each day.

  • Weekly backups start just after midnight on Sunday mornings.

  • Monthly backups start just after midnight on the first day of each month.

  • Yearly backups start just after midnight on the first day of the year.

The start time is based on the time zone set on each source ONTAP system. You can't schedule backup operations at a user-specified time from the UI. For more information, contact your System Engineer.

Backup copies are associated with your NetApp account

Backup copies are associated with the NetApp account in which the BlueXP Connector resides.

If you have multiple Connectors in the same NetApp account, each Connector displays the same list of backups. That includes the backups associated with Cloud Volumes ONTAP and on-premises ONTAP instances from other Connectors.