Temporary Restore Points

When running SLA-based backup policies, Veeam Backup for AWS creates 2 types of temporary restore points — temporary snapshots and temporary backups.

Temporary Snapshots

To produce image-level backups according to backup schedules configured for SLA templates, Veeam Backup for AWS takes temporary snapshots but then automatically removes them. The retention of these temporary snapshots depends on whether you enable the changed block tracking (CBT) mechanism for these templates:

• If CBT is enabled for an SLA template, Veeam Backup for AWS keeps the latest temporary snapshot in the snapshot chain until the next backup session runs. In this case, Veeam Backup for AWS processes only those data blocks that have changed since the previous snapshot was created. This allows you to increase the speed and efficiency of incremental backups but can incur additional costs of storing snapshots in AWS.

• If CBT is disabled for an SLA template, Veeam Backup for AWS removes the latest temporary snapshot from the snapshot chain during the next retention session (as soon as Veeam Backup for AWS finalizes the backup window in all protected AWS Regions). In this case, Veeam Backup for AWS processes not only those data blocks that have changed since the previous snapshot was created, but also all other data blocks of the snapshot. This allows you to reduce the cost of storing snapshots in AWS but decreases the speed and efficiency of incremental backups.

That is, it is recommended that you take into account both backup schedules and your cost management strategy when choosing whether to enable CBT for SLA templates.

Temporary Backups

To build archive backup chains for EC2 instances protected by SLA-based backup policies, Veeam Backup for AWS implements the same forever forward incremental backup method that applies to schedule-based backup policies. For more information, see Archive Backup Chain.

However, if Veeam Backup for AWS fails to detect any full backups added to a backup chain on the same day when the archive session runs, it creates a temporary full backup that is then used to produce an archived backup in the target archive repository. After the archived backup is produced, Veeam Backup for AWS automatically removes the temporary backup from the backup chain during the next retention session (as soon as Veeam Backup for AWS finalizes the backup window in all protected AWS Regions).

Related Topics

Adding SLA Templates