This page provides an overview of VM backup and restore operations in Google Distributed Cloud (GDC) air-gapped.
GDC supports the ability to back up and restore VM-based and container-based workloads. GDC VM backup supports the backup and restoration of multiple VM or VM disk snapshots. Backups are managed through backup plans, which let you schedule regular backups or create backups manually. You can restore entire VMs, creating a new instance with the same configuration and disk state as the backup, or restore disk snapshots.
GDC backup for VMs offer the following features:
- Support for different VM instance configurations and sizes.
- Customer data stored in primary storage in the form of Kubernetes persistent volumes and VM disk images.
- Local snapshots for VM disks.
Backup and restoration process
You can perform backup and restore processes in the GDC console or the API. Users must have the correct predefined role to perform certain backup and restore operations.
To back up and restore VM and container workloads, follow these general steps:
- Create a backup repository.
- Create a backup plan that references the backup repository.
- Either let the backup plan automatically create scheduled backups or manually create a backup.
- Back up disks in the form of snapshots.
- Restore VMs or snapshots based on the backups.
Backup repository overview
Before you can create backups or snapshots, you must create a backup repository. A backup repository contains configuration information such as the bucket name, region, and storage endpoint. The backup repository name is provided as an input parameter when you create a VM backup plan. For more information, see Create a backup repository.
Manage VM backup plans
Backup plans provide the configuration and location for backups. A backup plan contains a backup configuration including the VMs to back up. Backup plans define a regular schedule for which backups of VMs occur. You can also manually create backups at any time. For more information, see Plan a set of VM backups.
Restore a VM or snapshot
Users can restore their VM workloads or disk snapshots for the backups that were created manually or as part of their scheduled backup plans:
- For VM workloads, the restoration process creates a new VM with the same configuration and disk state as the backup. For more information, see Create a VM from a backup.
- For disk snapshots, the restore creates a new disk with the same configuration and disk state as the snapshot. For more information, see Restore from a snapshot.