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Amazon’s AWS Backup is a fully managed backup service that allows users to centrally configure backup policies and monitor backup activity for AWS resources in one place, and with a few clicks in the AWS Backup console, they can automate their data protection policies and schedules.
Amazon launched its AWS Backup and Developer Guide in 2019, which was designed to make it easy to centralize and automate data protection and backup of data across AWS services in the cloud as well as on-premises.
See below to learn all about AWS Backup and where it stands in the cloud backup sector:
See more: The Best Enterprise Backup Software
AWS Backup and the Cloud Backup Market
The cloud backup market is growing rapidly, having already reached the billion-dollar market value within a few years. The global cloud backup market value was $10.61 billion in 2021, and it is expected to reach $24.53 million by 2029, registering a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.56% from 2022 to 2029.
AWS Backup is the market leader in cloud backup with a 29.99% share. Amazon’s AWS is the market leader in cloud services, and AWS leading cloud infrastructure with 33% of the global market share.
AWS Backup Key Features
AWS Backup is an extremely feature-rich, high-performance, and fully managed backup service. Some of the features and benefits of AWS Backup are given below.
Automated Scheduling and Retention
AWS Backup allows the creation of backup schedules that can be customized to meet backup requirements and can also choose from predefined backup schedules based on common best practices. AWS Backup will automatically back up AWS resources according to the user-defined policies and schedules.
AWS Backup also allows setting backup retention policies that will automatically retain and expire backups according to backup compliance requirements, and automated backup retention management makes it easy to minimize backup storage costs by retaining backups for only as long as they are needed.
Activity Monitoring and Audit
AWS Backup makes monitoring backup and restore activity simple across AWS services through a dashboard. Users can view the status of recent backup jobs and restore jobs with just a few clicks in the AWS Backup console to ensure AWS resources are properly protected.
AWS Backup Audit Manager allows auditing and reporting on the compliance of data protection policies and provides built-in compliance controls. It is designed to automatically detect violations of user-defined data protection policies and will prompt to take corrective actions, and users can continuously evaluate the backup activity and generate audit reports to demonstrate compliance with regulatory requirements.
Policies and Incremental Backups
AWS Backup enables it to meet compliance requirements while minimizing costs, and users can configure life cycle policies to automatically transition backups according to a user-defined schedule.
It efficiently stores periodic backups incrementally, and the first backup of an AWS resource backs up a full copy of user data. Incremental backups ensure to benefit from the data protection of frequent backups while minimizing storage costs. For each successive incremental backup, only the changes to AWS resources are backed up.
AWS Backup Use Cases
AWS Backup is a cost-effective, fully managed, policy-based service that is used to easily centralize and automate the back up of data across AWS services in the cloud and further simplifies data protection at scale.
“Having separate accounts for backups is essential for implementing a good separation of concerns. Having it out-of-box as an AWS feature is fantastic; further integrating with AWS Organizations is a cherry on top of it, enhancing security and backup management for a multi-account setup.” -Rujuswami Gandhi, director of cloud center of excellence, ZS Associates
“AWS Backup is extremely easy to set up and use. It’s much easier than any backup product we’ve used in the past and enables us to show our auditors what they need to see for maintaining compliance. We spun up our AWS Backup plans really quickly and set up templates and tags, so any team can automatically have their new resources protected by the right backup plan.” -Thomas Hewer, technology lead, Wise
“Our business is about trust, and AWS gives us the flexibility and the ability to feel confident that we will meet our security and compliance requirements. We can move and develop quicker knowing we will have the proper back up that AWS provides.” -Sam Balcon, CTO and CIO, Sigue Corporation
AWS Backup Differentiators
Some of the key areas of differentiation for AWS Backup are given below.
Centralized Management
Users can configure backup policies and monitor activity for their AWS resources, such as Amazon RDS databases, Amazon DynamoDB tables, Amazon EFS file systems, Amazon EBS volumes, and AWS Storage Gateway volumes.
Configuring from a central console simplifies backup management and makes it easy to ensure application data is backed up and protected. Users can use the AWS Backup’s central console, APIs, or command-line interface (CLI) to back up, restore, and set backup retention policies across AWS services.
Cross-Account Backup
AWS Backup supports cross-account backup, which enables securely copying backups across AWS accounts. Users can copy backups either manually, as on-demand copy, or automatically as part of a scheduled backup plan to only the trusted destination accounts.
The feature gives an additional layer of protection should the source account experience disruption from accidental or malicious deletion, disasters, or ransomware.
Global Infrastructure
The AWS Cloud Infrastructure is built around Regions and Availability Zones (AZ) and operates AZs with current plans to expand to more areas where our customers operate. The infrastructures are designed and managed according to security best practices, and AWS customers also have access to governance-focused, audit-friendly services to meet compliance and audit requirements.
User Reviews of AWS Backup
AWS Backup receives mostly positive reviews and recommendations from several user review sites. According to G2, users rate AWS Backup at 4.6 out of 5. The users at TrustRadius rate AWS Backup at 8.5 out of 10. According to PeerSpot user review, users rate OpenShift at 4.2 out of 5, with 81% willing to recommend it.
AWS Backup Pricing
AWS Backup pricing is based on the amount of storage space the user’s backup data consumes, and the storage amount billed in a month is based on the average storage space used throughout the month (billed as GB-month).
Backup storage pricing:
- Warm Storage starts from $0.021 per GB-month.
- Cold Storage starts from $0.01 per GB-month.
Restore pricing:
- Warm Storage starts from $0.02 per GB and is also available free for several services.
- Cold Storage starts from $0.03 per GB.
- Item-level Restore starts from $0.50 per request.
AWS Backup does not have any minimum fee or setup charges. Users pay only for:
- The amount of backup storage used
- Amount of backup data transferred between AWS Regions
- Amount of backup data restored
- The number of backup evaluations
Conclusions
AWS Backup is a fully managed service, where users can configure backup policies and monitor activity for AWS resources in one place. It provides a fully managed, policy-based backup solution that simplifies backup management and enables users to meet business and regulatory backup compliance requirements. AWS Backup offers high security, scalability, high performance, and low operational costs. As such, AWS Backup can be a good option for any enterprise.
See more: The Backup-as-a-Service (BaaS) Market
