This document summarizes Ec2Backup, a service that provides high availability and backups for Amazon EC2 instances. It ensures instances are backed up across availability zones to minimize downtime. It requires launching the Ec2Backup AMI, which then automatically backs up instances and stores backups in a separate availability zone. The interface allows browsing backed up instances and launching recovery instances from backups. It supports Windows instances and Active Directory integration using application-consistent snapshots.

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Ec2Backup
Backup & HA for Amazon EC2
Getting Started

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Introduction
Ec2Backup provides High-Availability & Backup for EC2 instances. The #1 reason for AWS
failures is instance loss from problems within an Availability Zone. Ec2Backup ensures that
the backup for an instance resides in a different availability zone to ensure continuous
availability (with minimum downtime). The service is purpose built for AWS with zero
legacy code and minimum overhead.
Instances can be started to both satisfy recovery needs as well as additional compute
needs.
Feature Summary
Current features include:
 Zero-configuration
 Backups are application consistent (uses Windows VSS snapshots). SQL Server
will come up without a problem.
 Supports Windows Active Directory.
 Inter Availability Zone backup.
 Supports Windows EC2 Instances using EBS volumes.
 Maintains 4 snapshots for each instance (hourly, daily, weekly, monthly)
 Web-based interfaces allows launching recovery-instances
Prerequisites
1. An administrator IAM Role.
(See http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/CreateRole.html)
2. An unused/sparsely used Availability Zone. This will be the designated backup AZ.
3. Windows Domain information if applicable. This includes:
a. Domain Controller IP Address
b. Domain Name
c. Domain Username
d. Domain Password

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Launching the Ec2Backup AMI
1. From the AWS Management Console, click on AMI & search for 'ec2backup' in
public images for the Windows platform.
2. Select the AMI and click launch.
3. Select an instance type (t1.micro or m1.small) and specify an AZ. Remember this is
where all backups are stored and where all recovery instances are launched.
4. On the next page, specify the Administrator IAM Role designated for this instance. If
running a Windows Active Directory setup, enter domain information in user-data.

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Note: User-data is case sensitive.
5. Continue with the AMI Launch setup as usual.
6. If running Windows Active Directory, select the AD-DomainMember security group.
7. Review your configuration and launch the instance.
Miscellaneous notes:
 Once the Ec2Backup Instance is launched it will take anywhere from 30 minutes to
an hour to completely inventory all instances and protect them.
 To see a list of protected instances, let the ec2backup instance bootstrap for an
hour and then connect to <ec2backup-instance-public-DNS>:8000 from a web-
browser.
 The user/password of the recovery portal is: admin/ec2backup
 Launching a recovery instance can take up to 2 minutes.
 Recovery instances are valid till they are running. On stopping a recovery instance it
will be cleaned up during the next backup run.
 Ec2Backup created snapshots are prefixed with a 'ec2backup-' tag.
 Ec2Backup created volumes are prefixed with a 'ec2backup-' tag.
 Recovery instances are tagged with a '-ec2backup' in the Name tag.
 VSS Snapshot integration is only available for Instances in an Active Directory.