About cloud accounts
Rapid Recovery works with cloud accounts in the following ways:
- Archive. You can store a one-time archive or continual scheduled archive in the cloud. This feature is supported for all supported cloud account types. When you archive to the cloud, you can later access the information in the archived recovery points by attaching the archive (for archives created in release 6.0.1 or later). For all archives (including archives created prior to Rapid Recovery 6.0.1), you can import the archive (which then makes the imported data subject to your data retention policy). You can also perform bare metal restore from an archive.
- Virtual export. You can perform virtual export to an Azure cloud account. This includes one-time export of a virtual machine, or continual export for a virtual standby VM.
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NOTE: When archiving to Azure using Rapid Recovery release 6.5, use the cloud account type Microsoft Azure Service Management (for Archive). When exporting a VM to Azure, use the cloud account type Microsoft Azure Resource Management (for Virtual Export). |
For conceptual information regarding various cloud accounts, see Considering cloud storage options.
For information about configuring timeout settings between the Core and cloud accounts, see Configuring cloud account connection settings.
For information about performing virtual export to the Azure cloud, see Exporting data to an Azure virtual machine.
For information about adding a cloud account, see Adding a cloud account.
Considering cloud storage options
This topic discusses support for US Government cloud storage accounts. It also discusses tradeoffs between cost and other factors when selecting cloud accounts for archiving.
Secure cloud accounts for US Government
United States federal, state, and local government agencies and their partners have access to increasing cloud account options. Rapid Recovery supports the following offerings for Government and related cloud accounts:
- AWS GovCloud (US). Amazon Web Services offers a service called AWS GovCloud (US). This is an isolated AWS region designed to meet specific regulatory and compliance requirements. Using this service lets United States government agencies and customers join private businesses in leveraging cloud accounts. Rapid Recovery supports archiving to Amazon S3 storage accounts in the AWS GovCloud.
- Azure Government. Azure Government is a United States government-only cloud platform exclusively for US federal, state, local, and tribal government agencies and their partners. Rapid Recovery supports Azure Government in the same manner that we offer standard Azure support. For example:
- Rapid Recovery supports archiving to Azure Government and standard Azure storage accounts.
- Rapid Recovery supports virtual export to an Azure virtual machine (one-time, or virtual standby) on public and Azure Government platforms.
- Rapid Recovery supports running a Rapid Recovery Core in an Azure VM in the AWS GovCloud or in a standard Azure account.
- Rapid Recovery supports replication from a source Core (running on-premises or in the AWS GovCloud) to an Azure VM target Core. If your source Core is located in the AWS GovCloud, your replication target must also run in the AWS GovCloud.
Balancing access time, cost and convenience for archiving to cloud accounts
To offer our users cost-effective cloud archiving and virtual export options, Rapid Recovery continues to expand support of cloud storage providers (and storage classes for leading providers that offer them). Educated users can leverage policies to balance data archive convenience, data access time, and cost.
When considering strategies for archiving or exporting to the cloud, Rapid Recovery users are encouraged to understand the tradeoffs between initial cost to store data, how frequently the data is expected to be used, the need to access that data within a prescribed period of time, and costs associated with retrieving the data.
Some providers (such as Amazon S3) offer different storage classes. Choosing the correct storage class can save you money if your assumptions regarding these factors are accurate. Quest recommends that Rapid Recovery users review data storage policies at least once annually to ensure you are using your resources effectively. Similarly, administrators are cautioned to review the data being archived or exported to cloud accounts so you can update planning assumptions and migrate data accordingly.
The act of storing data, for some vendors, is extremely low or in some cases free. However, cloud service providers often apply charges to your account when you access or retrieve that data. There are often different fees based on how quickly you need to access the data. In some cases, using more expensive storage (such as Amazon S3 standard) is more cost effective if you plan to restore from recovery points than if you store data in Glacier and need to restore.
Amazon lets you define data life cycle policies that move data between Amazon S3 storage classes over time. For example, you could store freshly uploaded data using the Standard storage class, move it to Standard – Infrequent Access 30 days later, and then to Reduced Redundancy Storage after another 60 days have passed. You can also explicitly archive data for any type of Amazon S3 cloud account to Glacier, using the Archive Wizard. This is recommended if data recovery is expected very infrequently. Before selecting this option, familiarize yourself with fees related to access, storage age, and so on. See the topic Amazon storage options and archiving.
Some Rapid Recovery features are designed specifically for the cloud. If performing virtual export to the cloud using Azure, consider virtual standby. This process lets you create a fully bootable virtual machine in the Azure cloud. The VM files are continually updated with newly captured recovery points. Unlike virtual standby performed on-premises, the VM files are not deployed into a bootable VM until or unless you need them. Your initial cost for virtual standby in Azure involve only storage. Compute costs (which in Azure can be considerable in the long term) are incurred only if the VM is deployed, which is required to spin up a VM and perform a restore.
You can run a Rapid Recovery Core in an Azure VM. You can also replicate an on-premises Core to a VM in the Azure cloud, or replicate a source Core in Azure to a target Core in Azure. Running a source or target Rapid Recovery Core in Azure uses compute resources for the active Core VM, and requires storage accounts to be created and associated with each Core VM for your repository, which incurs storage costs. For information about setting up a Core to run in Azure, see the Rapid Recovery Azure Setup Guide.
Users of Rapid Recovery that employ cloud storage options are encouraged to understand the tradeoffs between initial cost to store data, the need to access that data within a prescribed period of time, and costs associated with retrieving the data.
For example, the act of storing data, for some vendors, is extremely low or in some cases free. However, cloud service providers often apply charges to your account when you access or retrieve that data. There are often different fees based on how quickly you need to access the data. In some cases, using more expensive storage (such as Amazon S3 standard) is more cost effective if you plan to restore from recovery points than if you store data in Glacier and need to restore.
Amazon lets you define data life cycle policies that move data between Amazon S3 storage classes over time. For example, you could store freshly uploaded data using the Standard storage class, move it to Standard – IA 30 days later, and then to Amazon Glacier after another 60 days have passed.
Adding a cloud account
Before you can move data in either direction between a cloud account and your Core, you must add cloud provider account information to the Rapid Recovery Core Console. This information identifies the cloud account in the Core Console while caching the connection information securely. This process then lets Rapid Recovery Core connect to the cloud account to perform the operations you specify.
To add a cloud account, complete the steps in the following procedure.
- On the Rapid Recovery Core Console icon bar, click the
(More) icon and then select
Cloud Accounts.
The Cloud Accounts page appears. - On the Cloud Accounts page, click + Add New Account.
The Add New Account dialog box opens.
- Select a compatible cloud provider from the Cloud type drop-down list.
- Enter the details described in the following table based on the cloud type selected in step 3. Since the table is listed and organized by cloud type, the Cloud Type parameter is listed in the first column instead of the Text Box column.
NOTE: In Rapid Recovery release 6.5, two Microsoft Azure cloud types are included on the Cloud Accounts page. Azure Service Management (ASM) specifically supports archiving to Azure. Azure Resource Management (ARM) supports virtual export to Azure. If using both archiving and virtual export to Azure in Rapid Recovery Core release 6.3, you are required to set up a cloud account for each.
Table 161: Cloud account details Cloud Type Text Box Description Amazon S3 Display name
Enter a display name for this cloud account to display on the Rapid Recovery Core Console; for example, Amazon S3 Cloud Account 1.
Access key
Enter the access key for your Amazon cloud account.
Secret key
Enter the secret key for this account.
Service endpoint
Optionally, if using an S3-compatible storage account other than a standard Amazon S3 storage account, enter the fully qualified http or https URL for that storage account. Storage class
Select a storage class for the S3 account. You can choose from:
- Standard
- Standard - Infrequent Access
- Reduced Redundancy Storage
If you want to archive to Glacier, you can define your Amazon cloud account using any listed storage class. The option to select Glacier storage is accessible from the Archive Wizard.
NOTE: For more information on storage classes, see the topic Considering cloud storage options.
Google Cloud
Display name
Enter a display name for this cloud account to display on the Rapid Recovery Core Console; for example, Google Cloud Account 1.
Certificate file
Browse for and select your Google certificate file to authenticate this cloud account.
Private key
Enter your private key for this account.
Project ID
Enter the Project ID associated with this account.
Service account email
Enter the email address registered with Google Cloud as the owner of this cloud service account.
Microsoft Azure Service Management (for Archive)
Display name
Enter a display name for this cloud account to display on the Rapid Recovery Core Console; for example, Azure Cloud Account 1.
Storage account name
Enter the name of your Microsoft Azure storage account.
NOTE: The name must match the storage account name in Azure precisely. It must contain lower case letters and numbers only, and be between 3 and 24 characters in length.
Access key
Enter the access key for your account.
NOTE: You can enter the primary or secondary key. To obtain the access key from your Azure account, check Keys under Settings.
Account type
Choose your Azure account type; for example Azure, Azure Germany, Azure China, or (US) Government. Use https protocol
Select this option to use the secure https protocol instead of the standard http protocol. Microsoft Azure Resource Management (for Virtual Export) Display name Enter a display name for this cloud account to display on the Rapid Recovery Core Console; for example, Azure Cloud Account 1. Region Select the appropriate region for your Azure account. For example, select from Azure Global Cloud, Azure China Cloud, Azure German Cloud, Azure US Government Cloud, and so on. Tenant ID
Enter the tenant ID precisely. This is an alphanumeric string (also called the Directory ID) associated with your Azure Active Directory application.
To obtain this value from the Azure UI, select Azure Active Directory > Properties > Directory ID.
Application ID
Enter the application ID for your Azure AD application precisely.
To obtain this value from the Azure UI, select Azure Active Directory > App registrations, select your application, and from the Settings pane, copy the Application ID.
Secret key
Enter the secret key for this account.
You must obtain this value from the Azure when you set up the key, If you do not record it, you must create a new secret key. From the Azure UI, to see or create secret keys, select Azure Active Directory > App registrations, select your application, click
Settings, and from the Settings pane, click
Keys.
Subscription ID
Enter the subscription ID for your Azure account precisely.
To obtain this value from the Azure UI, select
All services, click
Powered by OpenStack Display name
Enter a display name for this cloud account to display in the Rapid Recovery Core Console; for example, OpenStack Cloud Account 1.
Region
Enter the region for your cloud account.
User name
Enter the user name for your OpenStack-based cloud account.
Password or API key
Select whether to use a password or an API key, and then enter your selection for this account.
Tenant ID
Enter your tenant ID for this account.
Authentication URL
Enter the authentication URL for this account. This the base URL for the cloud instance. If not provided, Rapid Recovery Core uses the default URL, https://identity.api.rackspacecloud.com.
Rackspace Cloud Files
Display name
Enter a display name for this cloud account to display on the Rapid Recovery Core Console; for example, Rackspace Cloud Account 1.
Region
Use the drop-down list to select the region for your account.
User name
Enter the user name for your Rackspace cloud account.
Password or API key
Select whether to use a password or an API key, and then enter your selection for this account.
Tenant ID
Enter your tenant ID for this account.
Authentication URL
Enter the authentication URL for this account. This the base URL for the cloud instance. If not provided, Rapid Recovery Core uses the default URL, https://identity.api.rackspacecloud.com.
- Click Save.
The dialog box closes, and your account appears on the Cloud Accounts page of the Core Console.
Editing a cloud account
If you need to change the information to connect to your cloud account, for example to update the password or edit the display name, you can do so on the Cloud Accounts page of the Rapid Recovery Core Console. Complete the steps in the following procedure to edit a cloud account.
- On the Rapid Recovery Core Console icon bar, click The Cloud Accounts page appears.
- Next to the cloud account you want to edit, click the
The Edit Account window opens.
- Edit the details as necessary, and then re-enter the password (or API key, secret key, private key, and so on) required to connect to the cloud account. Then click Save.
NOTE: You cannot edit the cloud type.