Explore backup and recovery options in IBM Cloud

In this article, the author will focus on the ibm®http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/aggregation/13696.html ">smartcloud Enterprise provides to be used for IBM Cloud Resources provide a variety of levels of data recovery functionality. You will also explore other services and technologies that you might consider when deploying data in the cloud.

When you develop software solutions, the ability to recover data is particularly important throughout the lifecycle of the solution, including design, development, testing, and production. is also important in a local cloud environment, especially in a public cloud environment, where service level agreements are often less well-defined than those seen in traditional internal or managed deployments.

We will show you the capabilities that Ibm®smartcloud Enterprise provides to provide a variety of levels of data recovery for IBM Cloud resources. In addition, we will help you explore other services and technologies that you might consider when deploying data in the cloud.

First, let's review some of the basics of the IBM cloud.

The basics of the IBM cloud

Some of the data recovery basics you need to know when reading this article include:

the difference between an instance and an image. What is temporary storage. What is persistent storage. What is Object storage. How rationing (provisioning) and Associations (association) work. How to use storage. What types of backups exist.

Instance and image

In IBM SmartCloud Enterprise, an instance is a virtual machine that is based on an image operation. Related to the instance are the configuration components of the virtual CPU, memory, and local (temporary) storage. The local storage of an instance includes the operating system, software applications, data, and the configuration added for the instance.

An image is a previously saved representation of a running instance. The image is a version that is based on an instance stop and is separated from the snapshot area, which is a copy of the running instance, including its memory state.

Temporary storage, persistent storage, and object storage

Let's take a look at the various types of storage available on the IBM SmartCloud Enterprise. There are three types of storage on IBM Cloud:

Temporary storage is a storage embedded in a virtual machine. Its lifecycle is closely related to the virtual machine. When you delete a virtual machine, the temporary store is deleted, so the data saved in that store will be deleted as well. Persistent storage is a store that you can use and attach to an instance during the creation of an instance. Its lifecycle is not associated with a virtual machine. Deleting a virtual machine does not delete the persistent store, so you can reattach the persistence store to the new virtual machine and access your data here. Object storage is a storage method that can be requested through the SmartCloud Enterprise Additional Services order Form. Object storage is a web-based storage approach that can be accessed via a Web or Cloudnas interface. Its lifecycle is not associated with a virtual machine. Deleting a virtual machine does not delete the object store. You can reconnect to the object store with another new virtual machine, and access your data again.

The following table shows the data lifecycle of both types of storage and the actions taken on related instances and storage devices.

Data lifecycle of storage type

Storage Type/


operation Restart instance Delete instance Delete storage temporary storage data retention data loss not applicable persistent storage data retention data retention data loss object storage data retention data loss

Rationing and association

Persistent storage:

Currently, a maximum of three persistent storage units can be associated with a given instance, as shown in Figure 1. One of the storage units can be attached when the instance is allocated. You can dynamically attach up to three storage units (if you attach a storage unit when you assign an instance, only two storage units are attached). The persistence storage unit is dynamically attached or can be dynamically detached from the instance. The ability to dynamically attach or detach from a persistent storage unit can be implemented through the SCE creator programming interfaces (API) and not through the SCE Portal.

Figure 1. An instance with a maximum of three persistent storage units

It is also important to know that persistent storage cannot be attached to multiple instances concurrently. Because persistent storage is a block device, the lock is controlled by the host it specifies.

Figure 2. You can attach to only one virtual machine at a time and mount a persistent storage block

The provisioning or creation of persistent storage can be done through the portal interface or the IBM Cloud API. The time required to allocate a storage unit depends on the requested storage size, type, and current behavior of a particular cloud environment (or datacenter).

Because storage is actually using sectors on the back-end system, the original persistence storage type has a shorter ration time. Because no underlying file system or data exists on existing storage, it only takes a few seconds to allocate on the back-end storage subsystem.

Persistent storage can be dispensed only if it is not attached to any instance. As mentioned earlier, if a storage cell is dynamically attached to an instance, it can also be released dynamically. If you have attached a storage unit while allocating the instance, you must first deallocate the instance before you can deallocate the storage unit.