SQL server on EC2 policies

Once a protection policy is enabled for a host, immediately starts the backup seeding process to synchronize data between the host and . The initial backup seeding process creates a full SecureVault Backup of the host and saves it to Clumio.

Policies can be configured to schedule backups to occur at different frequencies throughout the year, with yearly backups retained for up to seven years. Backups can be restored at anytime during the retention period.

Hourly: Enable this check box to generate backups every few hours. After the initial seeding, subsequent backups are generated every day at 12:00 AM UTC and then at the frequency specified. For example, if a policy has been configured to take backups every 7 hours, backups will always occur at 12:00 AM, 7:00 AM, 2:00 PM, and 9:00 PM every day. Each backup is retained for the specified number of days. If you are using hourly backups, the Backup Window option is not supported.
Daily: Enable this check box to generate backups every few days. Daily backups are enabled by default and cannot be disabled. After the initial seeding, subsequent backups are generated at the frequency specified, calculated from the first of every month.
Weekly: Enable this checkbox to generate backups every week. After the initial seeding, subsequent backups are generated at the frequency specified, calculated from the first of every month.
Monthly: Enable this check box to generate backups every few months. After the initial seeding, subsequent backups are generated at the frequency specified, calculated from the 1st of January every year. A backup is also taken on January 1st each year. For example, if a policy has been configured to take backups every 5 months, backups will always occur on January 1st, June 1st, and November 1st of each year.
Yearly: Enable this check box to generate backups once per year. When enabled, a backup is generated on the first of the year, and then again on the first of the following year and retained for the specified number of years. If multiple backups are generated on the same day, only one copy is retained. For example, if monthly and yearly backups are generated on January 1st, only one copy is saved.

On days that multiple backups are generated, only one copy is saved for each of those instances. For more information about backup policy settings, see Backup policies.

Point-in-Time recovery

Point-in-Time Recovery (PITR) allows you to recover a database to a specific point in time. This requires log backups. Point-in-Time recovery is only available for SQL Server databases using the Full Recovery model, which includes log backups. It is not available for databases using the Simple Recovery model. The recovery model is set by your MS SQL database admin (DBA).

Full database recovery

A full database backup allows you to recover a database to the time the last backup finished or to a point in time provided backup is complete to that specific time. This requires transaction log backups.

Additional policy options

The Additional options panel tab provides more options for Point-in-time-recovery and full backups of Availability Group preferred replicas—these options do not apply to seed-ing backups, which are always taken from the primary replica.

PITR: Select an interval and a retention period to take log backups. Log backups can be scheduled at 15 minute, 30 minute, or hourly intervals and retained for a minimum of 14 days up to 31 days. We recommend taking more frequent log backups if you have a high rate of database transactions.

Availability Group preferred replica: You can choose either Primary or Sync Secondary. Clumio tries to back up data from this (preferred) replica first. If this replica is unavailable, Clumio switches to the alternative replica. If set to Stop, then Clumio does not attempt to switch to this replica if the preferred replica is unavailable and the backup task fails.

Create SQL on EC2 backup policy

Navigate to Protect > Backup policies..
Click Create. The Create Policy wizard displays.
Type a name for the new policy.
Select MS SQL on EC2 from the Add asset types drop down menu.
On the Configure MS SQL on EC2 screen, select frequency and retention options. Daily backups are enabled by default along with the Enable log backups for point in time recovery option on the Additional options panel.
On the Additional options panel,
1. You can choose to specify a window of time when the backups can take place, select the Start time checkbox and specify the time zone and start and end times of the backup window, if you don't select specific times, the backup window is for 24 hours. You can also choose to select just the start time for when backups should be taken as end time is optional.
2. The Enable log backups for point in time recovery option is enabled by default. If you disable this option, then log backups are turned off, preventing point-in-time recovery. You can also select a backup start time for log backups.
3. Choose the Availability group preferred replica options per your requirements. From the first dropdown, choose the preferred replica. The options are Primary or Sync Secondary. This is the replica that Clumio will try to back up data from first.
  From the second dropdown, choose the alternate replica. This is the replica from which Clumio will try to back up data, if the preferred replica is unavailable. The options depend on the choice you make for the preferred replica. Choose Stop if you do not want Clumio to attempt a backup from an alternate replica.
4. Click Save to save the policy and have it display on the Backup policies page.