Using StoreGrid to backup data from your Amazon EC2 Instances

Users of Amazon EC2 would be well advised to backup their user data (files/folders in EC2 instances including mounted EBS Volumes) and application data. While an obvious choice of backup destination would be a backup server running on Amazon itself (preferably on another availability zone), StoreGrid also supports the ability to backup data from your Amazon EC2 instance - to a backup server totally outside the Amazon Cloud; perhaps to a server at your own office. This way, you have an additional disaster recovery option - outside of your primary cloud environment!

This is a Beta release! As this 'market segment' evolves, and we bring our cloud computing backup solutions into production, you can expect a whole bunch of additional features and improvements. For now, you can:

• Backup MySQL & MS SQL Databases from live application servers

• Backup System State / Active Directory

• Perform 'Point-in-time' restores of the user/application data

• Backup to a StoreGrid backup server that you setup in the Amazon Cloud, OR

• Backup to a StoreGrid backup server that you setup outside of the Amazon Cloud

Setting up StoreGrid clients in Amazon EC2

Setting up StoreGrid clients in an Amazon EC2 instance involves the following steps:

1. Download StoreGrid

2. Install StoreGrid

3. Update StoreGrid Configuration

4. Start StoreGrid

5. Configure Backups (after configuring a StoreGrid Backup Server)

1. Download StoreGrid:

You can download StoreGrid v2.5 SP Edition Beta Client Only build for EC2 instances from the below table.

The 2.5 Beta Client Only installations are built 'on top of' the existing 2.3.5 builds and hence, support all the features available with 2.3.5 Release. Please visit the following URL for detailed description of all the features available: http://www.vembu.com/storegrid/latest-backup-software.html. A more comprehensive StoreGrid feature list is available here, http://www.vembu.com/storegrid/desktop-backup.html

We will be supporting client installations in other flavors of Linux such as Debian (Ubuntu/Gentoo), Mandrake, FreeBSD, Mac (Intel & Power PC versions) OS installations when we release v2.5 for production environments (by December 2008).

Supported OS Versions	Client Only Build	Installation Guide
Windows® Vista, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows 2008/2003 SBS/2003/2000 Server [Build No. : 2502008103119]
Precompiled - RedHat Linux 8.0 and later, RedHat Enterprise Linux, Fedora core 3 and later, CentOS 4.2 and later, SuSE Linux 9.x and Later (Unzip the zip file and then execute the bin file) [Build No. : 2502008103119]

2. Install StoreGrid:

Install StoreGrid v2.5 Beta in the EC2 instance. Please follow the installation guide, Windows & Linux for installing the client-only instance in your corresponding EC2 instances.

Install StoreGrid as a Service in Windows and a daemon in Linux. This will enable StoreGrid to be started automatically when the instance is rebooted.

After installation, choose the option not to start StoreGrid immediately.

3. IMPORTANT: Update StoreGrid Configuration:

We would have to configure StoreGrid to store the internal databases in a mounted EBS drive to preserve the client meta-data. This ensures the StoreGrid internal databases are intact, when the EC2 instance is re-initiated.

These StoreGrid internal databases store the client's backup configuration, Intelli-delta signatures, client's authentication configuration and other meta-data. In a Disaster Recovery scenario all the Client configurations can be retrieved from the StoreGrid Server, but, the Intelli-delta signatures will be lost. The Intelli-delta signatures are an important part of StoreGrid incremental backups. Hence, the need to have the Intelli-delta signatures preserved.

Please follow the below steps to preserve the StoreGrid internal databases in the mounted EBS Volume:

Open the <StoreGrid_Home>/conf/SGConfiguration.conf file,

where <StoreGrid_Home> is the StoreGrid installation location.

Change the value of 'Path' attribute of <DBStorageLocation> tag to a folder under the mounted EBS Volume.

4. Start StoreGrid:

In Windows, you can start StoreGrid from 'Start Menu -> All Programs -> Vembu StoreGrid -> Start StoreGrid'.

In Linux, you can start StoreGrid by opening a terminal window and going to the <StoreGrid_Home> and running 'sh startStoreGrid.sh' script.

5. Configure Backups (after configuring a StoreGrid Backup Server):

Now, you will be able to access the StoreGrid WebConsole from, http://<MachineName>:6060 from the browser. Please login with the user name and password as selected during the installation and configure backups.

NOTES:

• You can open the firewall of the EC2 instance for TCP ports 6060 (HTTP) or 6061 (HTTPS) by authorizing the security group of the EC2 instance to login to the StoreGrid WebConsole remotely.

• Your backup server can be running on Amazon EC2. Please see http://www.vembu.com/storegrid/amazon-ec2-s3-cloud-online-backup.html for details on how to configure a backup server on Amazon EC2

• For details on how you can run a v2.5 (Beta) backup server outside of the Amazon Cloud (on your own server), please visit http://www.vembu.com/storegrid/storegrid-mysql-support.html

For more details on configuring backups, please visit the help documentation from the following URLs:

• File/Folder Backups including Mounted EBS Volumes: http://www.vembu.com/storegrid/sp-help/PageHelp/configure-backup-schedule.html

• MySQL Server Backups: http://www.vembu.com/storegrid/sp-help/PageHelp/mysql-server-backup-configuration.html

• MS SQL Server Backups: http://www.vembu.com/storegrid/sp-help/PageHelp/sql-server-backup-configuration.html

• System State Backups: http://www.vembu.com/storegrid/sp-help/PageHelp/system-state-backup-configuration.html

If you have questions or run into any issues, please email us at storegrid-cloud@vembu.com