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.
Larry Gilreath II, Solutions Architect
Best practices for backup
and recovery: Windows
Workloads onto AWS

2. Backup and Recovery Solution Space
On Prem Backup and Recovery
Process to protect data in the event of accidental deletion, corruption or failure with the ability to
restore data to given point in time.
Disaster Recovery
Ability to restore service in the event of failure.
Storage
Snapshots
Storage ISV Hypervisor Tape Storage
Off-site Tape
Vault
Archiving
Long term retention of data, generally for
compliance requirements.

3. Backup & Recovery Challenges
Backup systems are often underfunded
Organizations forget about recovery
• Bad recovery experiences trigger backup system changes
Backup systems change slowly
• Always try to work with existing platforms
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 Office/Branch Office Backups
clients
Field office
Internet
Home office
client
Hotel
client
Airport
client
Coffee Shop
client
Data Center

6. Common Backup and Recovery
Data growth spiraling out of control
• Challenging to meet backup windows
Traditional technologies and processes don’t scale
Try to accurately predict storage needs
Bandwidth / WAN constraints for remote office / branch office (ROBO)
RPOs / RTOs can be difficult to achieve
• Recovery Point Objective
• Recovery Time Objective
Backup and Archive HW + SW is expensive
Tape is unreliable, cumbersome, error prone, with low durability
Off-site vaulting is cumbersome
Days or Weeks

7. Why AWS for backup?
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. AWS Global Infrastructure
11 Regions
26+ Availability Zones
50+ Edge locations

9. AWS Storage and Archive Options
Amazon
Simple
Storage
Service
(S3)
Highly
scalable
object
storage
1
byte
to
5
TB
in
size
99.999999999%
durability
Amazon
Elas7c
Block
Store
(EBS)
High-performance block storage device
1 GB to 16 TB in size
Mount as drives to instances with snapshot/
cloning functionalities
Amazon
Glacier
Long-­‐term
object
archive
Extremely
low
cost
per
gigabyte
99.999999999%
durability

10. 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

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

12. Easy ways to transfer data
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

13. Where AWS fits natively: S3 & Glacier
Backup
Master
Backup
Database
Media
Server
Media
Amazon S3
WANBoundary
Amazon Glacier
or
Client
Client
HTTPS
HTTPS
HTTPS

14. Where AWS fits natively: AWS Storage Gateway
Backup
Master
Backup
Database
Media
Server
Media
Amazon S3
AWS Storage
Gateway
cached
volume
virtual tape
library
VTL
WANBoundary
Caching
disk
Amazon Glacier
iSCSI

15. Hybrid Cloud Backup
VPC – Datacenter #4
Single GUI for Management

16. Branch office backup to cloud
Considerations:
- Backup Software
- Storage / Caching Gateway
- WAN or Internet
- Deduplication
- Compression
- Encryption
- WAN Acceleration

17. Core data center backup to cloud
Considerations:
- Backup Software
- Storage / Caching gateway
- Direct Connect or Internet
- Telco Burst Models
- Time Warner Telecom
- Deduplication
- Compression
- Encryption
- WAN Acceleration

18. Cloud backup to Cloud
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 Snaps / Scripting

19. Recovery Solutions

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

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

22. 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

23. 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

24. 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

25. 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

26. Windows - General
VM Import
• no additional charge beyond Amazon EC2 and Amazon
S3
• Use the AWS CLI or other developer tools to import a
virtual machine (VM) image
• VMware vSphere - AWS Management Portal for vCenter
to import your VM
• Windows and Linux VMs that use VMware ESX or
Workstation, Microsoft Hyper-V, and Citrix Xen
virtualization

27. Windows - AD
AWS Directory Service
• AD Connector
• connect your Microsoft Active Directory to the AWS Cloud
• Integrate with your existing RADIUS-based MFA
infrastructure
• Domain Join Instances

28. Windows - Database
Amazon RDS for SQL Server
• Import Your Data – pre-steps
• Create a snapshot of the target database.
• Disable automated backups on the target database.
• Disable foreign key constraints, if applicable.
• Drop indexes, if applicable.
• Disable database triggers, if applicable.
• Import & Export Wizard
• Bulk Copy