Getting started with Clumio for SQL on EC2

Clumio provides full database recovery and point-in-time database restore solutions for SQL Server running on AWS EC2 instances. Clumio supports Availability Group and Failover Cluster Instance (FCI) deployments of SQL Server on EC2.

Before you begin

Supported versions

SQL Server

SQL Server 2022 edition (Enterprise/Developer/Standard/Web)
SQL Server 2019 edition (Enterprise/Developer/Standard/Web)
SQL Server 2016 and 2017 edition (Enterprise/Developer/Standard/Web)
SQL Server 2014 64-bit edition (Enterprise/Developer/Standard/Web)
SQL Server 2012 64-bit edition (Enterprise/Developer/Standard/Web)

Refer to this article for a list of corresponding Microsoft Windows Server editions that are supported for each of the SQL Server versions listed.

Prerequisites

Clumio performs both database and log level backups of your SQL environments by leveraging SSM agents on each of your hosts combined with a small binary file to perform backup and restore operations.

The following prerequisites are required for successful installation.

IAM prerequisites

You must have permission to create and update a cloud formation template.

If your EC2 instance does not have the default IAM role with SSM permissions, then the following is required:

You must have CloudShell permissions to onboard hosts to Clumio, refer to AWS documentation for information about managing CloudShell access and usage with IAM policies.
Alternatively, the generated script can be run using the AWS CLI. The script requires permissions to apply tags to and modify the Instance Profile of the EC2 instance.

SQL Server prerequisites

The AWS Systems Manager Agent (SSM Agent) user must have system administrator privileges on the MS SQL server instance to be onboarded to Clumio.
The NT Authority/SQLwriter account must have system administrator privileges.
The NT Authority/SYSTEM account must have system administrator privileges. (Required for MS SQL Server 2019)
The SQL Server VSS writer service must be running on the MS SQL host.
The Volume Shadow Copy Service must be registered or present in the services list.

Host prerequisites

Software/Service	Version	Notes
Windows PowerShell	= 5.1.x.x	If the EC2 SQL host runs Windows Server 2012 or 2012 R2, you must verify that it has Windows PowerShell version 5.1 or above installed. Note: Windows Powershell 5.1.x.x and Powershell 7.x are different windows utilities.
Microsoft Software Shadow Copy provider	> = v1.0	Required to perform SQL backup and restore operations.
AWS SSM Agent	> = 3.1.1575.0	Required to perform SQL backup and restore operations.
AWS EBS NVMe ID utility	> = 1.4.2	Required to add a temporary EBS volume for backup and restore operations.

Limitations

Clumio’s MSSQL on EC2 service currently has a few known limitations.

Backup for the EC2 SQL host using FSX storage is currently not supported.
VSS snapshot might fail if a single SQL instance has more than 35 databases (a limitation from Microsoft).
We currently do not support backups and recovery for Multi-Region always-on availability groups (AAG) configuration.
Filestream database backup is currently not supported.
Offboarding a host from Clumio does not remove it’s related binaries from the host (temporary limitation).

Connect your AWS account

You must first connect the AWS account and region that your SQL Server hosts are located in to start protecting them using Clumio. For detailed instructions on how to connect your AWS account to Clumio, see Connect an AWS Environment.

Requirements for backup and recovery

Both backup and recovery have specific storage requirements. For details on backup requirements, see Backup Requirements for MSSQL on EC2. For details on recovery requirements, see Recovery Requirements for MSSQL on EC2.

Adding SQL Server hosts to Clumio

After you have connected your AWS account, you can add SQL servers. For details on how to add SQL servers, see Adding SQL Server Hosts to Clumio.

Clumio for always-on Availability groups on EC2

Clumio supports backup and recovery for always-on Availability Groups on EC2. For details on how to add always-on Availability Groups, see Adding SQL Server hosts to Clumio.

Clumio for SQL Server FCI on EC2

Clumio supports backup and recovery for SQL Server FCI on EC2. For details on how to add SQL Server FCI, see Adding SQL Server hosts to Clumio.

Contact [email protected] with any questions or concerns.