General Information About Backup Jobs

Before we begin with the processes for creating backup jobs and restoring data from backups, it is important to note some information related to the backup jobs and other jobs available to the customers.

Backup jobs

When provisioning a Backup VDC service, neoCloud administrators create the backup jobs that contain the virtual applications and machines that need to be protected, based on an agreed upon retention policy. This job is mapped in the interface of Backup VDC in order for the customer to be able to monitor and edit the job if necessary. For simplification of management, neoCloud administrators use two types of backup jobs:

  • Basic backup job - keeping 14 daily backups
  • Advanced backup job - keeping 14 daily backups as well as 4 weekly, 6 monthly and yearly full backups

If the user has another preference for the retention policy of backups, the backup job can be edited by the customer from the interface.

The primary backup jobs created by neoCloud administrators or backup jobs created by customers have predefined parameters according to the best practices from the backup software vendor. These parameters are not visible to the customers, but because of our transparency policy, they are described as follows:

  • Backup mode for the backup jobs is Incremental, where after the first execution all following executions are incremental backups.
  • All jobs are configured to create synthetic full backups each Saturday. With this potion, incremental backups are synthesized into full backups for simpler backup chain management.
  • All jobs use deduplication and compression for space saving for backups.
  • In case the software detects a problem with the data during job execution (corrupted blocks for example, Active Full Backup is automatically triggered which processes a whole new backup from the source, instead of an incremental backup only. The same process is executed if such problem is detected during the creation of synthetic full backups. With this, data integrity in backup files is guaranteed.
  • All jobs are integrated with VMware Tools in the operating system of the virtual machines in order to create a consistent snapshot. Regardless whether the job is configured for application level integration, application and data in the virtual machine's backup files are always consistent.
  • All jobs use Change Block Tracking (CBT), allowing for faster and more efficient job execution through processing only changed blocks of virtual machine disks. In case of an Active Full Backup, CBT information is reset.

Backup copy jobs

Aside from the primary backup job, neoCloud administrators create a secondary job - a backup copy job through which backup data is protected in another neoCloud physical data center. In case of a failure of the backup storage system or a complete neoCloud physical data center downtime, with these jobs the customer's data are secure and allow for restoration of the production systems. This way, neoCloud meets the requirements of the 3-2-1 backup rule. Because of limitations in the current version of the software, backup copy jobs are not visible in the customer's interface.

Backup data for the secondary jobs are not retrieved from the production virtual machines, but from previously created backups, avoiding the performance impact that is caused by backup execution of the production systems. Since these jobs purpose if to have the data available in case of a backup storage system failure or a data center failure, the retention of the backup data stored is different than the one in the primary jobs. The retention policy of the backup copy jobs is:

  • Keeping 2 daily backups
  • Keeping 4 weekly backups

Tape jobs

For all customers that have configured yearly full backup restore points in the primary backup jobs, neoCloud writes the yearly backups to a tape. The primary reason for this is saving disk space on the backup storage system, but also introducing additional safety for the customer's backup data. The process of writing to tape is performed by neoCloud administrators at the beginning of the calendar year, once the yearly full backups are created.

Because of compliance with data protection laws and regulations, each customer is assigned separate tapes. The number of the dedicated tapes depends on the customers data capacity requirement and are included in the price of the service. Since the tapes are only used at the beginning of the calendar year, the rest of the year they are kept in a safe. Security from unauthorized access is achieved by encrypting the data with an encryption key that consists of 32 characters which are generated randomly which makes their forceful decryption practically impossible. The encryption keys are kept in an encrypted database of the backup software.

Backup data deletion

In case the customer terminates the agreement and seizes to use the service, no matter if it is both VDC and Backup VDC as integrated service or only the Backup VDC service, customers backup data are deleted by neoCloud administrators within 60 days. In the deletion process, all backup data is deleted from the primary backup job, the secondary backup copy job as well as the tapes if they are used for the customer. As will all other customer data deletion because of agreement termination seize of usage of services, during the deletion process of customer data from the Backup VDC service, a three member commission from Neocom signs a report that the data has been permanently deleted. If the request ofr data deletion comes from the customer, the customer is offered to sign the report as well. After the 60 days period, the report is signed internally by the three member commission from Neocom as a record for regulatory and legal inspection and for ISO standardization revision.

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