BlueXP backup and recovery now supports file and folder restores on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) versions 8 and 9 using the Podman engine. This applies to the BlueXP backup and recovery Browse and Restore method.

BlueXP Connector version 3.9.40 supports certain versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux versions 8 and 9 for any manual installation of the Connector software on a RHEL 8 or 9 host, regardless of the location in addition to the operating systems mentioned in the host requirements. These newer RHEL versions require the Podman engine instead of the Docker engine. Previously, BlueXP backup and recovery had two limitations when using the Podman engine. These limitations have been removed.

Learn more about restoring ONTAP data from backup files.

This release includes an improved catalog index that completes the baseline indexing much faster. Faster indexing enables you to use the Search and Restore feature more quickly.

Learn more about restoring ONTAP data from backup files.

With this release, you can now restore volumes that you created in ONTAP that are less than 1 GB. The minimum volume size that you can create using ONTAP is 20 MB.

The DataLock feature protects your backup files from being modified or deleted for a specified period of time. This is helpful to protect your files against ransomware attacks.

For details about DataLock and tips on how to mitigate the associated costs, refer to Backup-to-object policy settings.

The Amazon Web Services (AWS) Identity and Access Management (IAM) Roles Anywhere service enables you to use IAM roles and short-term credentials for your workloads outside of AWS to access AWS APIs securely, the same way that you use IAM roles for workloads on AWS. When you use IAM Roles Anywhere private key infrastructure and AWS tokens, you don't need long-term AWS access keys and secret keys. This enables you to rotate credentials more frequently, improving security.

With this release, support for AWS IAM Roles Anywhere service is a technology preview.

This applies to backing up Cloud Volumes ONTAP to AWS.
This applies to backing up on-premises ONTAP data to AWS.

Refer to BlueXP backup and recovery July 2024 release blog.

Previously, FlexVol volumes could be restored, but you couldn't restore FlexGroup folders or directories. With ONTAP 9.15.1 p2, you can restore FlexGroup folders using the Browse and restore option.

With this release, support for FlexGroup folder restore is a technology preview.

For details, refer to Restore folders and files using Browse & Restore.

For details to enable it manually, refer to BlueXP backup and recovery July 2024 release blog.

BlueXP Connector version 3.9.40 supports certain versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux versions 8 and 9 for any manual installation of the Connector software on a RHEL 8 or 9 host, regardless of the location in addition to the operating systems mentioned in the host requirements. These newer RHEL versions require the Podman engine instead of the Docker engine. At this time, BlueXP backup and recovery has two limitations when using the Podman engine.

See Backup and Restore limitations for details.

The following procedures include new Podman instructions:

Previously, you could enable or disable ransomware scans, but could not do this for scheduled scans.

With this release, you can now enable or disable scheduled ransomware scans on the latest Snapshot copy by using the option on the Advanced Settings page. If you enable it, scans are performed weekly by default. You can change that schedule to days or weeks or disable it, saving costs.

Refer to the following information for details:

Previously, when you enabled ransomware detection in a backup policy, scans occurred automatically when the first backup was created and when you restored a backup. Previously, the service scanned all Snapshot copies and you could not disable the scans.

With this release, you can now enable or disable ransomware scans on the latest Snapshot copy by using the option on the Advanced Settings page. If you enable it, scans are performed weekly by default.

Refer to the following information for details:

See Backing up Cloud Volumes ONTAP data to Amazon S3 and Backing up Cloud Volumes ONTAP data to Azure Blob.

Now you can perform a quick restore of a volume from cloud storage to an on-premises ONTAP destination volume. Previously you could perform a quick restore only to a Cloud Volumes ONTAP system. The quick restore is ideal for disaster recovery situations where you need to provide access to a volume as soon as possible. A quick restore is much faster than full volume restore; it restores the metadata from a cloud snapshot to an ONTAP destination volume. The source could be from AWS S3, Azure Blob, Google Cloud Services, or NetApp StorageGRID.

The on-premises ONTAP destination system must be running ONTAP version 9.14.1 or greater.

You can do this using the Browse and restore process, not the Search and restore process.

For details, see Restore ONTAP data from backup files.

Previously, you could restore files and folders only from backup copies in AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Services. Now, you can restore files and folders from local Snapshot copies and from replication copies.

You can perform this feature by using the Search and restore process, not by using the Browse and restore process.

Previously, you could generate reports on backup copies only. Now, you can create reports on local Snapshot copies and replication Snapshot copies as well.

With these reports, you can do the following:

Refer to Report on data protection coverage.

You can now add custom tags to volumes starting in ONTAP 9.13.1 so that you can group volumes together within and across working environments. Doing this enables you to sort volumes in the BlueXP backup and recovery UI pages and filter in reports.

Previously, Catalog.zip backups were retained for 7 days. Now, they are retained for 30 days.

Refer to Restore BlueXP backup and recovery data in dark sites.

Previously, custom policies had to be created before you initiated a Snapshot, replication, or backup. Now you can create a policy during the backup activation process using the BlueXP backup and recovery UI.

Learn more about policies.

BlueXP backup and recovery now provides the ability to perform a "quick restore" of a volume from cloud storage to a Cloud Volumes ONTAP system. The quick restore is ideal for disaster recovery situations where you need to provide access to a volume as soon as possible. A quick restore restores the metadata from the backup file to a volume instead of restoring the entire backup file.

The Cloud Volumes ONTAP destination system must be running ONTAP version 9.13.0 or greater. Learn more about restoring data.

The BlueXP backup and recovery Job Monitor also shows information about the progress of quick restore jobs.

The BlueXP backup and recovery Job Monitor previously monitored scheduled volume-to-object-store backup and restore jobs but not local Snapshot, replication, backup, and restore jobs that were scheduled via the UI or API.

The BlueXP backup and recovery Job Monitor now includes scheduled jobs for local Snapshots, replications, and backups to object storage.

Learn more about the updated Job Monitor.

This release includes the ability within the UI to create custom Snapshot policies, replication policies, and policies for backups to object storage for ONTAP data.

Learn more about policies.

Previously, you couldn't restore files and folders using the “Browse & Restore” feature when volumes were backed up to ONTAP S3 object storage. This release removes that restriction.

Learn more about restoring data.

Now you can send your backup files immediately to archive storage instead of writing the data to standard cloud storage. This can be especially helpful for users who rarely need to access data from cloud backups or users who are replacing a backup to tape environment.

Backup and recovery now can back up both FlexVol and FlexGroup volumes that are configured using SnapLock Enterprise protection mode. Your clusters must be running ONTAP 9.14 or greater for this support. Backing up FlexVol volumes using SnapLock Enterprise mode has been supported since ONTAP version 9.11.1. Earlier ONTAP releases provide no support for backing up SnapLock protection volumes.

Learn more about protecting ONTAP data.

Now you can use an ONTAP system which has been configured for the Simple Storage Service (S3) to back up volumes to object storage. This is supported for both on-premises ONTAP systems and Cloud Volumes ONTAP systems. This configuration is supported in cloud deployments and in on-premises locations without internet access (a "private" mode deployment).

Learn more.

In the past you've had the ability to include existing Snapshot copies from read-write volumes in your initial backup file to object storage (instead of starting with the most recent Snapshot copy). Existing Snapshot copies from read-only volumes (data protection volumes) were not included in the backup file. Now you can choose to include older Snapshot copies in the backup file for "DP" volumes.

The backup wizard displays a prompt at the end of the backup steps where you can select these "existing Snapshots".

Previously you could check a box in the backup wizard to apply the selected backup policy to all future volumes added to the cluster. This feature has been removed based on user feedback and lack of usage of this feature. You'll need to manually enable backups for any new volumes added to the cluster.

The Job Monitoring page now provides more information related to the 3-2-1 backup strategy. The service also provides additional alert notifications related to the backup strategy.

The "Backup lifecycle" Type filter has been renamed to "Retention". Use this filter to track the backup lifecycle and to identify the expiration of all backup copies. The "Retention" job type captures all Snapshot deletion jobs initiated on a volume that is protected by BlueXP backup and recovery.

Learn more about the updated Job Monitor.

BlueXP backup and recovery now enables you to implement a 3-2-1 strategy where you can have 3 copies of your source data on 2 different storage systems along with 1 copy in the cloud. After activation, you'll have a:

Learn more about the new full spectrum backup and restore capabilities.

This new functionality also applies to recovery operations. You can perform restore operations from a Snapshot copy, from a replicated volume, or from a backup file in the cloud. This gives you the flexibility to choose the backup file that meets your recovery requirements, including cost and speed of recovery.

Note that this new functionality and user interface is supported only for clusters running ONTAP 9.8 or greater. If your cluster has an earlier version of software, you can continue using the previous version of BlueXP backup and recovery. However, we recommend that you upgrade to a supported version of ONTAP to get the newest features and functionality. To continue using the older version of the software, follow these steps:

When you create backup files in object storage, by default, the backup and recovery service will create the buckets in object storage for you. You can create the buckets yourself if you want to use a certain name or assign special properties. If you want to create your own bucket, you must create it before starting the activation wizard. Learn how to create your object storage buckets.

This functionality is not currently supported when creating backup files to StorageGRID systems.

Backup policies for FlexGroup volumes now can use DataLock and Ransomware protection when the cluster is running ONTAP 9.13.1 or greater.

There is now a Reports tab where you can generate a Backup Inventory report, which includes all backups for a specific account, working environment, or SVM inventory. You can also create a Data Protection Job Activity report, which provides information about Snapshot, backup, clone, and restore operations that can help you with service level agreement monitoring. Refer to Report on data protection coverage.

You can now review backup lifecycle as a Job Type on the Job Monitor page, helping you to track the entire backup lifecycle. You can also see details of all operations on the BlueXP Timeline. Refer to Monitor the status of backup and restore jobs.

A new backup alert has been added: "Backup files were not created because Snapshot policy labels do not match". If the label defined in a Backup policy does not have a matching label in the Snapshot policy, then no backup file will be created. You'll need to use System Manager or the ONTAP CLI to add the missing label to the volume Snapshot policy.

Review all of the alerts that BlueXP backup and recovery can send.

When you're using BlueXP backup and recovery in a site with no internet access, known as a "private mode" deployment, the BlueXP backup and recovery information is stored only on the local Connector system. This new functionality automatically backs up critical BlueXP backup and recovery data to a bucket on your connected StorageGRID system so that you can restore this data onto a new Connector if necessary. Learn more

If a backup file has been configured with DataLock & Ransomware protection, or if the backup file resides in archival storage, now folder-level restore operations are supported if the cluster is running ONTAP 9.13.1 or greater.

Now you can choose a bucket that's in a different project than the project of your customer-managed encryption keys (CMEK).
Learn more about setting up your own customer-managed encryption keys.

The AWS China Beijing (cn-north-1) and Ningxia (cn-northwest-1) regions are now supported as destinations for your backup files if the cluster is running ONTAP 9.12.1 or greater.

Note that the IAM policies assigned to the BlueXP Connector need to change the AWS Resource Name "arn" under all Resource sections from "aws" to "aws-cn"; for example "arn:aws-cn:s3:::netapp-backup-*".

See Back up Cloud Volumes ONTAP data to Amazon S3 and Back up on-prem ONTAP data to Amazon S3 for details.

System-initiated jobs, such ongoing backup operations, are now available in the Job Monitoring tab for on-premises ONTAP systems running ONTAP 9.13.1 or greater. Earlier ONTAP versions will display only user-initiated jobs.

Now you can back up data from Cloud Volumes ONTAP systems installed in AWS, Azure, and GCP commercial regions in "restricted mode". This requires that you first install the Connector in the "restricted" commercial region. Learn more about BlueXP deployment modes.

See Backing up Cloud Volumes ONTAP data to Amazon S3

See Backing up Cloud Volumes ONTAP data to Azure Blob.

New functionality in the APIs enable you to back up your volume snapshots to ONTAP S3 using BlueXP backup and recovery. This functionality is available only for On-Premises ONTAP systems at this time. For detailed instructions, see the Blog Integration with ONTAP S3 as a destination.

When creating backups from Cloud Volumes ONTAP systems to Azure storage, by default, BlueXP backup and recovery provisions the Blob container with Local redundancy (LRS) for cost optimization. You can change this setting to Zone redundancy (ZRS) if you want your data to be replicated between different zones. See the Microsoft instructions for changing how your storage account is replicated.

In the past when you restored a folder, only files from that folder were restored - no sub-folders, or files in sub-folders, were restored. Now, if you are using ONTAP 9.13.0 or greater, all the sub-folders and files in the selected folder are restored. This can save a great deal of time and money in cases where you have multiple nested folders in a top-level folder.

Now you can back up data from Cloud Volumes ONTAP systems installed in AWS and Azure commercial regions to Amazon S3 or Azure Blob. This requires that you install the Connector in "restricted mode" on a Linux host in the commercial region, and that you deploy the Cloud Volumes ONTAP system there as well.

See Backing up Cloud Volumes ONTAP data to Amazon S3.

See Backing up Cloud Volumes ONTAP data to Azure Blob.

Now you can tier older backup files from StorageGRID systems to archival storage in Azure. This enables you to free up space on your StorageGRID systems, and save money by using an inexpensive storage class for old backup files.

This functionality is available if your on-prem cluster is using ONTAP 9.12.1 or greater and your StorageGRID system is using 11.4 or greater. Learn more here.

DataLock and Ransomware Protection is now supported for backup files stored in Azure Blob. If your Cloud Volumes ONTAP or on-prem ONTAP system are running ONTAP 9.12.1 or greater, now you can lock your backup files and scan them to detect possible ransomware. Learn more about how you can protect your backups by using DataLock and Ransomware protection.

Backup files are initially created in the Google Standard storage class. Now you can use BlueXP backup and recovery to tier older backups to Google Archive storage for further cost optimization. The last release only supported this functionality with on-prem ONTAP clusters - now Cloud Volumes ONTAP systems deployed in Google Cloud are supported.

Now you restore volume data to different storage VMs in your ONTAP clusters. In the past there was no ability to choose the storage VM.

When using ONTAP 9.12.1 GA or greater, backup is now supported when connected to the primary system in a MetroCluster configuration. The entire backup configuration is transferred to the secondary system so that backups to the cloud continue automatically after switchover.

See Backup limitations for more information.

Now you can tier older backup files from StorageGRID systems to archival storage in AWS S3. This enables you to free up space on your StorageGRID systems, and save money by using an inexpensive storage class for old backup files. You can choose to tier backups to AWS S3 Glacier or S3 Glacier Deep Archive storage.

This functionality is available if your on-prem cluster is using ONTAP 9.12.1 or greater, and your StorageGRID system is using 11.3 or greater. Learn more here.

When backing up data from your ONTAP systems to Google Cloud Storage, now you can select your own customer-managed keys for data encryption in the activation wizard instead of using the default Google-managed encryption keys. Just set up your customer-managed encryption keys in Google first, and then enter the details when activating BlueXP backup and recovery.

In earlier releases, the "Storage Admin" role was required for the service account that enables BlueXP backup and recovery to access Google Cloud Storage buckets. Now you can create a custom role with a reduced set of permissions to be assigned to the service account.

See how to prepare your Google Cloud Storage for backups.

If you are backing up data from an on-prem ONTAP cluster to StorageGRID in a site with no internet access, also known as a dark site or offline site, now you can use the Search & Restore option to restore data when necessary. This functionality requires that the BlueXP Connector (version 3.9.25 or greater) is deployed in the offline site.

See how to restore ONTAP data using Search & Restore.
See how to install the Connector in your offline site.

After you filter the Job Monitoring page to display the jobs and actions you are interested in, now you can generate and download a .csv file of that data. Then you can analyze the information, or send the report to other people in your organization. See how to generate a Job Monitoring report.

Because of a change in Cloud Backup, you need to change the following Connector endpoints for successful Cloud Backup operation:

See the full list of endpoints for your AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure cloud environment.

Backup files are initially created in the Google Standard storage class. Now you can use the Cloud Backup UI to tier older backups to Google Archive storage after a certain number of days for further cost optimization.

This functionality is currently supported for on-prem ONTAP clusters using ONTAP 9.12.1 or greater. It is not currently available for Cloud Volumes ONTAP systems.

Cloud Backup now supports backing up and restoring FlexGroup volumes. When using ONTAP 9.12.1 or greater, you can back up FlexGroup volumes to public and private cloud storage. If you have working environments that include FlexVol and FlexGroup volumes, once you update your ONTAP software, you can back up any of the FlexGroup volumes on those systems.

See the full list of supported volume types.

In earlier releases you could select the aggregate only when restoring data to on-prem ONTAP systems. This functionality now works when restoring data to Cloud Volumes ONTAP systems.

If there are any local Snapshot copies for volumes in your working environment that match your backup schedule labels (for example, daily, weekly, etc.), you can export those historic snapshots to object storage as backup files. This enables you to initialize your backups in the cloud by moving older snapshot copies into the baseline backup copy.

This option is available when activating Cloud Backup for your working environments. You can also change this setting later in the Advanced Settings page.

Now you can delete the backup relationship for a volume. This 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. Learn how.

Cloud Backup has been integrated into the BlueXP Notification service. You can display Cloud Backup notifications by clicking the notification bell in the BlueXP menu bar. You can also configure BlueXP to send notifications by email as alerts so you can be informed of important system activity even when you're not logged into the system. The email can be sent to any recipients who need to be aware of backup and restore activity. Learn how.

This new page enables you to change many cluster-level backup settings that you set when activating Cloud Backup for each ONTAP system. You can also modify some settings that are applied as "default" backup settings. The full set of backup settings that you can change includes:

Learn more about managing cluster-level backup settings.

In the previous release, support was added for creating backup files to the public cloud when the Connector is deployed in your premises. In this release, support has been continued to allow using Search & Restore to restore backups from Amazon S3 or Azure Blob when the Connector is deployed in your premises. Search & Restore also supports restoring backups from StorageGRID systems to on-premises ONTAP systems now.

At this time, the Connector must be deployed in the Google Cloud Platform when using Search & Restore to restore backups from Google Cloud Storage.

The following updates have been made to the Job Monitoring page:

If you want to use a different AWS account for your Cloud Volumes ONTAP backups than you're using for the source volumes, you must add the destination AWS account credentials in BlueXP, and you must add the permissions "s3:PutBucketPolicy" and "s3:PutBucketOwnershipControls" to the IAM role that provides BlueXP with permissions. In the past you needed to configure many settings in the AWS Console - you don't need to do that anymore.

The last release introduced DataLock and Ransomware Protection for backups stored in Amazon S3 buckets. This release expands support to backup files stored in StorageGRID systems. If your cluster is using ONTAP 9.11.1 or greater, and your StorageGRID system is running version 11.6.0.3 or greater, this new backup policy option is available. Learn more about how you can use DataLock and Ransomware protection to protect your backups.

Note that you'll need to be running a Connector with version 3.9.22 or greater software. The Connector must be installed in your premises, and it can be installed in a site with or without internet access.

Now you can restore a folder from a backup file if you need access to all the files in that folder (directory or share). Restoring a folder is much more efficient than restoring an entire volume. This functionality is available for restore operations using both the Browse & Restore method and the Search & Restore method when using ONTAP 9.11.1 or greater. At this time you can can select and restore only a single folder, and only files from that folder are restored - no sub-folders, or files in sub-folders, are restored.

In the past you could only restore volumes from backup files that had been moved to archival storage (AWS and Azure only). Now you can restore individual files from these archived backup files. This functionality is available for restore operations using both the Browse & Restore method and the Search & Restore method when using ONTAP 9.11.1 or greater.

In the past, a file restored to the original volume was always restored as a new file with the prefix "Restore_<file_name>". Now you can choose to overwrite the original source file when restoring the file to the original location on the volume. This functionality is available for restore operations using both the Browse & Restore method and the Search & Restore method.

If the StorageGRID destination for your backups exists as a working environment on the Canvas, you can drag your on-prem ONTAP working environment onto the destination to initiate the Cloud Backup setup wizard.