Backing up Windows workloads can be a challenge, and cumbersome for many companies. Backup and recovery for Windows workloads on AWS, however, can be easy. This session will cover best practices for backup and recovery, how to configure Windows workloads to back up to AWS; pitfalls to look out for; and recommended reference architectures.

1. ©2015, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved
Backup and Recovery for
Windows workloads on AWS
Rich Uhl
Enterprise Solutions Architect

2. Terminology
Archiving
Long term retention of data, generally for
legal, compliance or regulatory
requirements. Details often determined by
business or industry.
Disaster Recovery
Disaster Recovery (DR) enables the
recovery or continuation of vital technology
infrastructure and systems following a
natural or human-induced disaster.
Backup and Restore
Backup, or the process of backing up,
refers to the copying and archiving of
computer data to restore the original after
a data loss event.

3. History of backup and recovery
• Poor funding for backup systems
• Organizational dynamics
• No clear ownership
• Focused on backup not recovery
• Bad experiences determine changes
• Backup systems change slowly
• Always try to work with existing platforms
• Equipment lifecycle
• Data lifecycle is longer than equipment lifecycle
No one cares about backups. Everyone cares about recovery.

4. Operating
System
Backup
Agent
Data
Backup
Master
Backup
Database
Media
Server
Media
Hypervisor
Backup
Agent
Guest Guest Guest
Network
Off Site
Configuration
& Metadata
Data
Data
Data
Data Center backup software platform

5. Remote and branch office backups
Clients
Field Office
Internet
Home Office
Client
Hotel
Client
Airport
Client
Coffee Shop
Client
Data Center
Amazon
WorkSpaces
Amazon
WorkDocs

6. Backup and recovery challenges
• Data growth spiraling out of control
• Challenges with backup windows
• Technology, process and people don’t scale
• Prediction of storage needs
• Bandwidth / WAN constraints for remote and branch offices
• RPOs / RTOs can be difficult to achieve
• Backup and archive HW + SW is expensive
• Tape is unreliable, cumbersome, error prone, with low durability
• Off-site vaulting
Days or Weeks

7. Value of backups on AWS
Metered usage:
Pay as you go
No capital investment
No commitment
No risky capacity planning
Avoid Opex and risks of
physical media
handling
Control your
geographic locality for
performance and
compliance

8. 11 Regions
28 Availability Zones
Select the regions that meets you business needs
AWS global infrastructure

9. Backup and restore service mapping
EBS Snapshot
Virtual Tape Library
S3 Bucket
Volume Snapshot
Tape Library
Your Data Centers
Online Repository
S3 Bucket
Glacier archive
S3 region replicas
AWS Marketplace3rd Party
Regional Archives
Offline Tape Media
Online Tape Media

10. Storage and archive options
Simple
Storage
Service
(S3)
Highly
scalable
object
storage
Up
to
5
TB
in
size
99.999999999%
durability
Elas4c
Block
Store
(EBS)
High-performance block storage
Up to 16 TB in size
Mount as drives with snapshot
functionality
Amazon
Glacier
Long-­‐term
object
archive
Extremely
low
cost
per
gigabyte
99.999999999%
durability
Very fast
‘instance’ disks
Fast
Web object storage
Slow,
Rare access

11. Built-in redundancy
designed for
99.999999999%
durability
Store backups in Amazon S3
Internet-scale
storage grow without
limits
Benefit from AWS’s
massive security
investments
Low price
per GB per month
No commitment
No up-front cost

12. Long term backup retention in Glacier
Stop managing
physical media
Amazon Glacier has
lower cost than
Amazon S3 with the
same durability
Amazon Glacier is
optimized for
infrequent retrieval

13. Data transfer mechanisms
AWS Direct Connect
Dedicated connectivity
to AWS Edge
Locations
AWS Import/Export
Data transfer using
portable disk drives
Transfer data in a
secure SSL tunnel
over the public Internet

14. S3 and Glacier
Backup
Master
Backup
Database
Media
Server
Media
Amazon S3
WANBoundary
Amazon Glacier
or
Client
Client
HTTPS
HTTPS
HTTPS

15. AWS Storage Gateway
Backup
Master
Backup
Database
Media
Server
Media
Amazon
S3
AWS Storage
Gateway
cache
d
volume
virtual tape
library
VTL
WANBoundary
Caching
disk
Amazon
Glacier
iSCSI

16. Hybrid cloud backup
VPC – Datacenter #4
Single GUI for Management

17. Branch office backup to cloud
Considerations:
• Backup software
• Storage / caching gateway
• WAN or internet
• Deduplication
• Compression
• Encryption
• WAN acceleration

18. Core data center backup to cloud
Considerations:
• Backup software
• Storage / caching gateway
• DirectConnect or internet
• Telco burst models
• Deduplication
• Compression
• Encryption
• WAN acceleration

19. Cloud backup inside AWS
Applications running on EC2 backing up to S3 / Glacier
Considerations:
• Backup software
• Encryption
• Deduplication
• Compression
• Native S3 and Glacier
integration
• AMI backup appliance
• AMI = Golden Master
• EBS snapshot + scripting

20. Recovery Solutions

21. Common Recovery Architectures
Backup
and
restore
Pilot
light
Warm
standby
Multi-
site

22. Backup and restore (into AWS)
On-site
infrastructure
S3 Bucket
Over the
Internet
AWS Import/Export
& AWS Storage
Gateway
AWS region
Corporate
data center
Using
AWS Direct
Connect
Availability Zone
Amazon
EC2
Amazon
S3 bucket
Backup
and
restore

23. Pilot light architecture
Pilot
light
www.example.com
Data
Mirroring/
Replication
Not Running
Database
Server
Data
Volume
Corporate data center
Web
Application
Server
Master
Database
Server

24. Pilot light architecture – Failover
Pilot
light
Not Running
Database
Server
Data
Volume
Corporate data center
Web
Application
Server
Master
Database
Server
www.example.com
Application
Server
Web Server
Server

25. Warm standby architecture
Warm
standby
Data
Mirroring/
Replication
Application
Data
Source
Cut Over
Elastic
Load
Balancer
Active
Production
Amazon
Route 53
www.example.com
Corporate data center
Data
Volume
Application
Server
Slave
Database
Server
Web
AWS region
Web
Application
Server
Master
Database
Server
Non Production
Traffic

26. Warm standby architecture – Failover
Warm
standby Elastic
Load
Balancer
Active
Production
Amazon
Route 53
www.example.com
Corporate data
center
Data
Volume
Application
Server
Slave
Database
Server
Web
AWS region
Web
Application
Server
Master
Database
Server

27. Windows OS backup and recovery
• System backup to a dedicated EBS volume
• Periodic snapshots of EBS volumes
• Leverage AMI’s for everything you can
• OS snapshot -> EBS snapshot via PowerShell
• VSSAdmin
• Code as recovery
• VM Import as a backup of an existing VM
• AWS CLI and developer tools
• AWS Management Portal for vCenter
• AWS Systems Manager for Microsoft System Center VMM

28. Microsoft Active Directory
• AWS Directory Service
• AD Connector
• Simple AD
• Native directory options
• Connect your Microsoft Active Directory to AWS cloud
• Extend you AD into AWS
• Integrate with your existing RADIUS-based MFA
infrastructure
• AD in multiple AZ’s
• Refer to AWS AD whitepaper

29. Microsoft SQL Server
• Amazon RDS for SQL Server
• Fully managed backups
• EBS volume with SQL dumps
• Snapshot of EBS volumes
• Import your data
• Import & Export wizard
• Bulk copy
• 3rd party and marketplace offerings

30. Partner backup offerings
• Symantec NetBackup & Backup Exec
• Microsoft Data Protection Manager 2012 R2
• Others
AVAILABLE IN

31. Summary
• Use managed services
• Leverage partner ecosystem
• Marketplace and consulting partners
• Code as a recovery mechanism
• Backup only what is necessary

32. ©2015, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved
Questions