Backing up Cloud Volumes ONTAP data to Google Cloud Storage

Contributors netapp-tonacki

Complete a few steps to get started backing up data from Cloud Volumes ONTAP to Google Cloud Storage.

Quick start

Get started quickly by following these steps or scroll down to the remaining sections for full details.

One Verify support for your configuration

  • You’re running Cloud Volumes ONTAP 9.7P5 or later in GCP.

  • You have a valid GCP subscription for the storage space where your backups will be located.

  • You have a service account in your Google Cloud Project that has the predefined Storage Admin role.

  • You have subscribed to the BlueXP Marketplace Backup offering, or you have purchased and activated a Cloud Backup BYOL license from NetApp.

Two Enable Cloud Backup on your new or existing system

  • New systems: Cloud Backup can be enabled when you complete the new working environment wizard.

  • Existing systems: Select the working environment and click Enable next to the Backup and recovery service in the right-panel, and then follow the setup wizard.

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

Three Enter the provider details

Select the Google Cloud Project where you want the Google Cloud Storage bucket to be created for backups.

A screenshot that shows the cloud provider details when backing up volumes from a Cloud Volumes ONTAP system installed on GCP to a Google Cloud Storage bucket.

Four Define the default backup policy

The default policy backs up volumes every day and retains the most recent 30 backup copies of each volume. Change to hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly backups, or select one of the system-defined policies that provide more options. You can also change the number of backup copies you want to retain.

A screenshot that shows the Cloud Backup settings where you can enable or disable the feature and then choose your backup retention.

Five Select the volumes that you want to back up

Identify which volumes you want to back up using the default backup policy in the Select Volumes page. If you want to assign different backup policies to certain volumes, you can create additional policies and apply them to volumes later.

Requirements

Read the following requirements to make sure that you have a supported configuration before you start backing up volumes to Google Cloud storage.

The following image shows each component and the connections that you need to prepare between them:

A diagram showing how Cloud Backup communicates with the volumes on the source system and the destination storage where the backup files are located.

Supported ONTAP versions

Minimum of ONTAP 9.7P5; ONTAP 9.8P13 and later is recommended.

License requirements

For Cloud Backup PAYGO licensing, a BlueXP subscription through the GCP Marketplace is required before you enable Cloud Backup. Billing for Cloud Backup is done through this subscription. You can subscribe from the Details & Credentials page of the working environment wizard.

For Cloud Backup BYOL licensing, you need the serial number from NetApp that enables you to use the service for the duration and capacity of the license. Learn how to manage your BYOL licenses.

And you need to have a Google subscription for the storage space where your backups will be located.

Supported GCP regions

Cloud Backup is supported in all GCP regions where Cloud Volumes ONTAP is supported.

GCP Service Account

You need to have a service account in your Google Cloud Project that has the predefined Storage Admin role. Learn how to create a service account.

Verify or add permissions to the Connector

To use the Cloud Backup Search & Restore functionality, you need to have specific permissions in the role for the Connector so that it can access the Google Cloud BigQuery service. See the permissions below, and follow the steps if you need to modify the policy.

  1. In Cloud Console, go to the Roles page.

  2. Using the drop-down list at the top of the page, select the project or organization that contains the role that you want to edit.

  3. Click a custom role.

  4. Click Edit Role to update the role’s permissions.

  5. Click Add Permissions to add the following new permissions to the role.

    bigquery.jobs.get
bigquery.jobs.list
bigquery.jobs.listAll
bigquery.datasets.create
bigquery.datasets.get
bigquery.jobs.create
bigquery.tables.get
bigquery.tables.getData
bigquery.tables.list
bigquery.tables.create

  6. Click Update to save the edited role.

Enabling Cloud Backup on a new system

Cloud Backup can be enabled when you complete the working environment wizard to create a new Cloud Volumes ONTAP system.

You must have a Service Account already configured. If you don’t select a service account when you create the Cloud Volumes ONTAP system, then you’ll need to turn off the system and add the service account to Cloud Volumes ONTAP from the GCP console.

See Launching Cloud Volumes ONTAP in GCP for requirements and details for creating your Cloud Volumes ONTAP system.

Steps

  1. On the Working Environments page, click Add Working Environment and follow the prompts.

  2. Choose a Location: Select Google Cloud Platform.

  3. Choose Type: Select Cloud Volumes ONTAP (either single-node or high-availability).

  4. Details & Credentials: Enter the following information:

    1. Click Edit Project and select a new project if the one you want to use is different than the default Project (where the Connector resides).

    2. Specify the cluster name.

    3. Enable the Service Account switch and select the Service Account that has the predefined Storage Admin role. This is required to enable backups and tiering.

    4. Specify the credentials.

      Make sure that a GCP Marketplace subscription is in place.

      Screenshot that shows how to enable a Service Account in the working environment wizard.

  5. Services: Leave the Cloud Backup service enabled and click Continue.

    Shows the Cloud Backup option in the working environment wizard.

  6. Complete the pages in the wizard to deploy the system as described in Launching Cloud Volumes ONTAP in GCP.

Result

Cloud Backup is enabled on the system and backs up the volume you created every day and retains the most recent 30 backup copies.

Enabling Cloud Backup on an existing system

You can enable Cloud Backup at any time directly from the working environment.

Steps

  1. Select the working environment and click Enable next to the Backup and recovery service in the right-panel.

    If the Google Cloud Storage destination for your backups exists as a working environment on the Canvas, you can drag the cluster onto the Google Cloud Storage working environment to initiate the setup wizard.

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

  2. Select the Google Cloud Project and region where you want the Google Cloud Storage bucket to be created for backups, and click Next.

    A screenshot that shows the cloud provider details when backing up volumes from a Cloud Volumes ONTAP system installed on GCP to a Google Cloud Storage bucket.

    Note that the Project must have a Service Account that has the predefined Storage Admin role.

  3. Enter the backup policy details that will be used for your default policy and click Next. You can select an existing policy, or you can create a new policy by entering your selections in each section:

    1. Enter the name for the default policy. You don’t need to change the name.

    2. Define the backup schedule and choose the number of backups to retain. See the list of existing policies you can choose.

      A screenshot that shows the Cloud Backup settings where you can enable or disable the feature and then choose your backup retention.

  4. Select the volumes that you want to back up using the defined backup policy in the Select Volumes page. If you want to assign different backup policies to certain volumes, you can create additional policies and apply them to those volumes later.

    • To back up all existing volumes and any volumes added in the future, check the box "Back up all existing and future volumes…​". We recommend this option so that all your volumes will be backed up and you’ll never have to remember to enable backups for new volumes.

    • To back up only existing volumes, check the box in the title row (button backup all volumes).

    • To back up individual volumes, check the box for each volume (button backup 1 volume).

      A screenshot of selecting the volumes that will be backed up.

    • If there are any local Snapshot copies for volumes in this working environment that match the backup schedule label you just selected for this working environment (for example, daily, weekly, etc.), an additional prompt is displayed "Export existing Snapshot copies to object storage as backup copies". Check this box if you want all historic Snapshots to be copied to object storage as backup files to ensure the most complete protection for your volumes.

  5. Click Activate Backup and Cloud Backup starts taking the initial backups of each selected volume.

Result

A Google Cloud Storage bucket is created automatically in the service account indicated by the Google access key and secret key you entered, and the backup files are stored there. The Volume Backup Dashboard is displayed so you can monitor the state of the backups. You can also monitor the status of backup and restore jobs using the Job Monitoring panel.

Backups are associated with the Standard storage class by default. You can use the lower cost Nearline, Coldline, or Archive storage classes. However, you configure the storage class through Google, not through the Cloud Backup UI. See the Google topic Changing the default storage class of a bucket for details.

What’s next?