Managing backups for your ONTAP systems

You can manage backups for your Cloud Volumes ONTAP and on-premises ONTAP systems by changing the backup schedule, creating new backup policies, enabling/disabling volume backups, pausing backups, deleting backups, and more.

Caution Do not manage or change backup files directly from your cloud provider environment. This may corrupt the files and will result in an unsupported configuration.

Viewing the volumes that are being backed up

You can view a list of all the volumes that are currently being backed up in the Backup Dashboard.

Steps

  1. From the BlueXP menu, select Protection > Backup and recovery.

  2. Click the Volumes tab to view the list of backed up volumes for Cloud Volumes ONTAP and on-premises ONTAP systems.

    A screenshot showing all the working environments and volumes that have backup files.

If you are looking for specific volumes in certain working environments, you can refine the list by working environment and volume, or you can use the search filter.

Enabling and disabling backups of volumes

You can activate backups for any new volumes if they are not currently being backed up. You can also activate backups for any volumes that you had previously deactivated.

You can deactivate backups for volumes so that no additional backups are generated. This also disables the ability to restore volume data from a backup file. This basically allows you to pause all backup and restore activity for a period of time. Any existing backups will not be deleted, so you’ll continue to be charged by your cloud provider for object storage costs for the capacity that your backups use unless you delete the backups.

Steps

  1. From the Volumes tab, select Backup Settings.

    A screenshot that shows the Backup Settings button which is available after you select a working environment.

  2. From the Backup Settings page, click More icon for the working environment and select Manage Volumes.

    A screenshot that shows the Manage Volumes button from the Backup Settings page.

  3. Select the checkbox for a volume, or volumes, that you want to change, and then click Activate or Deactivate depending on whether you want to start or stop backups for the volume.

    The Manage Volumes page where you can select or deselect volumes.

  4. Click Save to commit your changes.

Editing an existing backup policy

You can change the attributes for a backup policy that is currently applied to volumes in a working environment. Changing the backup policy affects all existing volumes that are using the policy.

Note

  • If you enabled DataLock and Ransomware Protection in the initial policy when activating BlueXP backup and recovery for this cluster, any policies that you edit must be configured with the same DataLock setting (Governance or Compliance). And if you did not enable DataLock and Ransomware Protection when activating BlueXP backup and recovery, you can’t enable DataLock now.

  • When creating backups on AWS, if you chose S3 Glacier or S3 Glacier Deep Archive in your first backup policy when activating BlueXP backup and recovery, then that tier will be the only archive tier available when editing backup policies. And if you selected no archive tier in your first backup policy, then S3 Glacier will be your only archive option when editing a policy.
Steps

  1. From the Volumes tab, select Backup Settings.

    A screenshot that shows the Backup Settings button from the Volumes tab.

  2. From the Backup Settings page, click More icon for the working environment where you want to change the policy settings, and select Manage Policies.

    A screenshot that shows the Manage Policies option from the Backup Settings page.

  3. From the Manage Policies page, click Edit for the backup policy you want to change in that working environment.

    Note you can click down-arrow button to view the full details for the policy.

    A screenshot that shows the Edit Policy button from the Manage Policies page.

  4. From the Edit Policy page, click down-arrow button to expand the Labels & Retention section to change the schedule and/or backup retention, and click Save.

    A screenshot that shows the backup policy settings where you can modify the backup schedule and backup retention setting.

    If your cluster is running ONTAP 9.10.1 or greater, you also have the option to enable or disable tiering of backups to archival storage after a certain number of days.

    Learn more about using AWS archival storage.
    Learn more about using Azure archival storage.
    Learn more about using Google archival storage. (Requires ONTAP 9.12.1.)

    A screenshot that shows the tiering to archival storage settings for BlueXP backup and recovery.

    Note that any backup files that have been tiered to archival storage are left in that tier if you stop tiering backups to archive - they are not automatically moved back to the standard tier. Only new volume backups will reside in the standard tier.

Adding a new backup policy

When you enable BlueXP backup and recovery for a working environment, all the volumes you initially select are backed up using the default backup policy that you defined. If you want to assign different backup policies to certain volumes that have different recovery point objectives (RPO), you can create additional policies for that cluster and assign those policies to other volumes.

If you want to apply a new backup policy to certain volumes in a working environment, you first need to add the backup policy to the working environment. Then you can apply the policy to volumes in that working environment.

Note

  • If you enabled DataLock and Ransomware Protection in the initial policy when activating BlueXP backup and recovery for this cluster, any additional policies you create must be configured with the same DataLock setting (Governance or Compliance). And if you did not enable DataLock and Ransomware Protection when activating BlueXP backup and recovery, you can’t create new policies that use DataLock.

  • When creating backups on AWS, if you chose S3 Glacier or S3 Glacier Deep Archive in your first backup policy when activating BlueXP backup and recovery, then that tier will be the only archive tier available for future backup policies for that cluster. And if you selected no archive tier in your first backup policy, then S3 Glacier will be your only archive option for future policies.
Steps

  1. From the Volumes tab, select Backup Settings.

    A screenshot that shows the Backup Settings button from the Volumes tab.

  2. From the Backup Settings page, click More icon for the working environment where you want to add the new policy, and select Manage Policies.

    A screenshot that shows the Manage Policies option from the Backup Settings page.

  3. From the Manage Policies page, click Add New Policy.

    A screenshot that shows the Add New Policy button from the Manage Policies page.

  4. From the Add New Policy page, click down-arrow button to expand the Labels & Retention section to define the schedule and backup retention, and click Save.

    A screenshot that shows the backup policy settings where you can add the backup schedule and backup retention setting.

    If your cluster is running ONTAP 9.10.1 or greater, you also have the option to enable or disable tiering of backups to archival storage after a certain number of days.

    Learn more about using AWS archival storage.
    Learn more about using Azure archival storage.
    Learn more about using Google archival storage. (Requires ONTAP 9.12.1.)

    A screenshot that shows the tiering to archival storage settings for BlueXP backup and recovery.

Changing the policy assigned to existing volumes

You can change the backup policy assigned to your existing volumes if you want to change the frequency of taking backups, or if you want to change the retention value.

Note that the policy that you want to apply to the volumes must already exist. See how to add a new backup policy for a working environment.

Steps

  1. From the Volumes tab, select Backup Settings.

    A screenshot that shows the Backup Settings button which is available after you select a working environment.

  2. From the Backup Settings page, click More icon for the working environment where the volumes exist, and select Manage Volumes.

    A screenshot that shows the Manage Volumes button from the Backup Settings page.

  3. Select the checkbox for a volume, or volumes, that you want to change the policy for, and then click Change Policy.

    The Manage Volumes page where you can select or deselect volumes.

  4. In the Change Policy page, select the policy that you want to apply to the volumes, and click Change Policy.

    A screenshot showing how to select a new policy to apply to selected volumes.

    Note If you enabled DataLock and Ransomware Protection in the initial policy when activating BlueXP backup and recovery for this cluster, you’ll only see other policies that have been configured with DataLock. And if you did not enable DataLock and Ransomware Protection when activating BlueXP backup and recovery, you’ll only see other policies that don’t have DataLock configured.

  5. Click Save to commit your changes.

Creating a manual volume backup at any time

You can create an on-demand backup at any time to capture the current state of the volume. This can be useful if very important changes have been made to a volume and you don’t want to wait for the next scheduled backup to protect that data, or if the volume is not currently being backed up and you want to capture its current state.

The backup name includes the timestamp so you can identify your on-demand backup from other scheduled backups.

If you enabled DataLock and Ransomware Protection when activating BlueXP backup and recovery for this cluster, the on-demand backup also will be configured with DataLock, and the retention period will be 30 days. Ransomware scans are not supported for ad-hoc backups. Learn more about DataLock and Ransomware protection.

Note that when creating an ad-hoc backup, a Snapshot is created on the source volume. Since this Snapshot is not part of a normal Snapshot schedule, it will not rotate off. You may want to manually delete this Snapshot from the source volume once the backup is complete. This will allow blocks related to this Snapshot to be freed up. The name of the Snapshot will begin with cbs-snapshot-adhoc-. See how to delete a Snapshot using the ONTAP CLI.

Note On-demand volume backup isn’t supported on data protection volumes.
Steps

  1. From the Volumes tab, click More icon for the volume and select Backup Now.

    A screenshot that shows the Backup Now button which is available after you select a volume.

The Backup Status column for that volume displays "In Progress" until the backup is created.

Viewing the list of backups for each volume

You can view the list of all backup files that exist for each volume. This page displays details about the source volume, destination location, and backup details such as last backup taken, the current backup policy, backup file size, and more.

Steps

  1. From the Volumes tab, click More icon for the source volume and select Details & Backup List.

    A screenshot that shows the Details & Backup List button which is available for a single volume.

    The list of all backup files is displayed along with details about the source volume, destination location, and backup details.

    A screenshot that shows the List of all backup files for a single volume.

Running a ransomware scan on a volume backup

NetApp ransomware protection software scans your backup files to look for evidence of a ransomware attack when a backup file is created, and when data from a backup file is being restored. You can also run an on-demand ransomware protection scan at any time to verify the usability of a specific backup file. This can be useful if you have had a ransomware issue on a particular volume and you want to verify that the backups for that volume are not affected.

This feature is available only if the volume backup was created from a system with ONTAP 9.11.1 or greater, and if you enabled DataLock and Ransomware Protection in the backup policy.

Steps

  1. From the Volumes tab, click More icon for the source volume and select Details & Backup List.

    A screenshot that shows the Details & Backup List button which is available for a single volume.

    The list of all backup files is displayed.

  2. Click More icon for the volume backup file you want to scan and click Ransomware Scan.

    A screenshot showing how to run a ransomware scan on a single backup file.

    The Ransomware Scan column will show that the scan is In Progress.

Deleting backups

BlueXP backup and recovery enables you to delete a single backup file, delete all backups for a volume, or delete all backups of all volumes in a working environment. You might want to delete all backups if you no longer need the backups, or if you deleted the source volume and want to remove all backups.

Note that you can’t delete backup files that you have locked using DataLock and Ransomware protection. The "Delete" option will be unavailable from the UI if you have selected one or more locked backup files.

Caution If you plan to delete a working environment or cluster that has backups, you must delete the backups before deleting the system. BlueXP backup and recovery doesn’t automatically delete backups when you delete a system, and there is no current support in the UI to delete the backups after the system has been deleted. You’ll continue to be charged for object storage costs for any remaining backups.

Deleting all backup files for a working environment

Deleting all backups for a working environment does not disable future backups of volumes in this working environment. If you want to stop creating backups of all volumes in a working environment, you can deactivate backups as described here.

Steps

  1. From the Volumes tab, select Backup Settings.

    A screenshot that shows the Backup Settings button which is available after you select a working environment.

  2. Click More icon for the working environment where you want to delete all backups and select Delete All Backups.

    A screenshot of selecting the Delete All Backups button to delete all backups for a working environment.

  3. In the confirmation dialog box, enter the name of the working environment and click Delete.

Deleting all backup files for a volume

Deleting all backups for a volume also disables future backups for that volume.

You can restart making backups for the volume at any time from the Manage Backups page.

Steps

  1. From the Volumes tab, click More icon for the source volume and select Details & Backup List.

    A screenshot that shows the Details & Backup List button which is available for a single volume.

    The list of all backup files is displayed.

    A screenshot that shows the List of all backup files for a single volume.

  2. Click Actions > Delete all Backups.

    A screenshot showing how to delete all backup files for a volume.

  3. In the confirmation dialog box, enter the volume name and click Delete.

Deleting a single backup file for a volume

You can delete a single backup file. This feature is available only if the volume backup was created from a system with ONTAP 9.8 or greater.

Steps

  1. From the Volumes tab, click More icon for the source volume and select Details & Backup List.

    A screenshot that shows the Details & Backup List button which is available for a single volume.

    The list of all backup files is displayed.

    A screenshot that shows the List of all backup files for a single volume.

  2. Click More icon for the volume backup file you want to delete and click Delete.

    A screenshot showing how to delete a single backup file.

  3. In the confirmation dialog box, click Delete.

Deleting volume backup relationships

Deleting the backup relationship for a volume provides you with an archiving mechanism if you want to stop the creation of new backup files and delete the source volume, but retain all the existing backup files. This gives you the ability to restore the volume from the backup file in the future, if needed, while clearing space from your source storage system.

You don’t necessarily need to delete the source volume. You can delete the backup relationship for a volume and retain the source volume. In this case you can "Activate" backup on the volume at a later time. The original baseline backup copy continues to be used in this case - a new baseline backup copy is not created and exported to the cloud. Note that if you do reactivate a backup relationship, the volume is assigned the default backup policy.

This feature is available only if your system is running ONTAP 9.12.1 or greater.

You can’t delete the source volume from the BlueXP backup and recovery user interface. However, you can open the Volume Details page on the Canvas, and delete the volume from there.

Note You can’t delete individual volume backup files once the relationship has been deleted. You can, however, delete all backups for the volume if you want to remove all backup files.
Steps

  1. From the Volumes tab, select Backup Settings.

    A screenshot that shows the Backup Settings button which is available after you select a working environment.

  2. From the Backup Settings page, click More icon for the working environment and select Manage Volumes.

    A screenshot that shows the Manage Volumes button from the Backup Settings page.

  3. Select the checkbox for a volume, or volumes, that you want to delete the backup relationship, and then click Delete Relationship.

    A screenshot showing how to delete the backup relationship for multiple volumes.

  4. Click Save to commit your changes.

Note that you can delete the backup relationship for a single volume from the Volumes page as well.

A screenshot showing how to delete the backup relationship for a single volume.

When you view the list of backups for each volume, you’ll see the "Relationship Status" listed as Relationship Deleted.

A screenshot showing the Relationship Deleted status after you delete a volume backup relationship.

Deactivating BlueXP backup and recovery for a working environment

Deactivating BlueXP backup and recovery for a working environment disables backups of each volume on the system, and it also disables the ability to restore a volume. Any existing backups will not be deleted. This does not unregister the backup service from this working environment - it basically allows you to pause all backup and restore activity for a period of time.

Note that you’ll continue to be charged by your cloud provider for object storage costs for the capacity that your backups use unless you delete the backups.

Steps

  1. From the Volumes tab, select Backup Settings.

    A screenshot that shows the Backup Settings button which is available after you select a working environment.

  2. From the Backup Settings page, click More icon for the working environment where you want to disable backups and select Deactivate Backup.

    A screenshot of the Deactivate Backup button for a working environment.

  3. In the confirmation dialog box, click Deactivate.

Note An Activate Backup button appears for that working environment while backup is disabled. You can click this button when you want to re-enable backup functionality for that working environment.

Unregistering BlueXP backup and recovery for a working environment

You can unregister BlueXP backup and recovery for a working environment if you no longer want to use backup functionality and you want to stop being charged for backups in that working environment. Typically this feature is used when you’re planning to delete a working environment, and you want to cancel the backup service.

You can also use this feature if you want to change the destination object store where your cluster backups are being stored. After you unregister BlueXP backup and recovery for the working environment, then you can enable BlueXP backup and recovery for that cluster using the new cloud provider information.

Before you can unregister BlueXP backup and recovery, you must perform the following steps, in this order:

  • Deactivate BlueXP backup and recovery for the working environment

  • Delete all backups for that working environment

The unregister option is not available until these two actions are complete.

Steps

  1. From the Volumes tab, select Backup Settings.

    A screenshot that shows the Backup Settings button which is available after you select a working environment.

  2. From the Backup Settings page, click More icon for the working environment where you want to unregister the backup service and select Unregister.

    A screenshot of the Unregister backup button for a working environment.

  3. In the confirmation dialog box, click Unregister.