Tracking and Backing Up Data with AWS
It’s essential to back up all your data regularly. However, it’s just as important to test your back-up files regularly.
The reliability pillar of the Well-Architected Framework offers guidelines to ensure your backups are safe and protected against failures. AWS also provides various options to help you safely back up your data.
Best Practices to Protect Your Backups
There are four best practices that can help ensure the safety of your data and backups. Remember to back up your applications and configuration as well, ensuring your backups meet your recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs).
● Identify and Backup All Data
Your first step is to identify all the data you want to back up. You might not need to back it up if it can be recreated from other sources and still meet your RPO. Once you’ve classified your data, you need to decide how to back it up.
As an AWS customer, you have access to their many backup options. Amazon S3 allows for the storage of multiple backup files. Several AWS services have built-in backup systems. If you use Amazon EBS, RDS or DynamoDB, you can set them to automatically backup your files, and store them elsewhere.
You can also use third-party systems to backup or store your files.
● Secure Your Backups
Just like your servers, you must ensure the security of your backups. If you use AWS’ services to create backups, enable encryption before backing up. If you use a third-party system, you might need to encrypt them yourself.
You should also restrict access to the backups. Only allow team members who require it access. Monitor the backups for any unauthorised access.
● Automate Data Backup
To ensure you always have a recent backup, use AWS Backup to automatically backup your files at regular intervals.
AWS Backup allows you to set different schedules for different workloads and to determine precisely where you want your backups stored. It enables you to create Backup Plans and Backup Vaults, giving you flexibility.
● Verify Your Backups
At regular intervals, test your backup files and procedures to ensure they meet your RTOs and RPOs.
Maintaining a Resilient Workload
If your systems aren’t fully compliant with the reliability pillar’s guidelines, you might want to set up an AWS Well-Architected Review. WOLK, a long-term AWS Partner, can identify any problem areas and mitigate them.
WOLK can help you maintain a reliable workload and ensure that your company is fully compliant with the Well-Architected Framework.