Adding an Amazon S3 backup location

Add an Amazon S3 backup location. Set a retention policy for the backup location.

1. Access the Create (or Edit) Backup dialog:
2. In the Create or Edit Backup dialog, under Location, click +Add Location.
   The Add Location dialog appears.

   

3. Select Amazon S3 as the backup Location.
4. Enter the S3 Bucket name.
   Note: The bucket name must be at least 4 characters long. Bucket names must only contain lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens. Additionally, OpsCenter requires that bucket prefixes contain only lowercase letters, numbers, and safe characters. See the S3 guidelines for more details about bucket naming restrictions.

   Tip: To indicate a bucket subfolder location, delineate the bucket name from the folder name with a forward slash (/) character. Example: mybucket/myfolder/mysubfolder. Remember that slashes are not allowed within bucket or folder names themselves.
5. Enter the Region where the S3 bucket is located so that OpsCenter can locate it.

   If blank, OpsCenter will try to query S3 for the bucket region or use the remote_backup_region as a default.

   Note: Some regions, such as China (Beijing), require a region to be specified and cannot be queried.
6. Select the source type of your AWS credentials.
   Warning: The AWS credentials and bucket names are stored in cluster_name.conf (with the exception of ad hoc backups). Be sure to use proper security precautions to ensure that this file is not readable by unauthorized users.

   Option	Description
   User-Supplied Credentials	Enter your AWS Key and AWS Secret.
   AWS Credential Provider chain	Use the default credential provider chain to locate AWS credentials. See Working with AWS Credentials on the AWS website.

7. Optional: Select any throttling, compressing, or encryption of the data:
   1. To avoid saturating your network, set a maximum upload rate. Select Throttle S3 transfer rate and set the maximum MB per second.
      Note: When the AWS CLI feature is enabled, the S3 throttle is ignored. A tooltip also mentions this current limitation. See Tuning throttling when using AWS CLI.
   2. To compress the backup data, select Enable compression. Compression reduces the amount of data going through your network and reduces the disk and data usage but increases the CPU load for the server.
   3. To enable server-side S3 encryption, select Enable S3 server-side encryption. Enabling server-side encryption increases the security of your backup files, but increases the time it takes to complete a backup. For more information on S3 server-side encryption, see Using Server Side Encryption on the AWS website.

      Choose the type of encryption you want to use:

      Option	Description
      256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard	SSE-S3 encryption encrypts each file in the backup set with a unique key, including the key itself, using a 256-bit AES cypher.
      KMS Managed Encryption	SSE-KMS encryption uses customer master keys (CMKs) to encrypt Amazon S3 objects. Enter a KMS Key ID that is associated with your AWS account.

   4. To back up nodes running in multiple regions to a single bucket, select Enable S3 transfer acceleration. Instead of traffic crossing over the internet, acceleration mode uses Amazon CloudFront to cache S3 requests. Because the CloudFront servers are closer to the nodes in each region, the backup latency is reduced.
      Note: Enabling S3 transfer acceleration can cause performance degradation, and might slow a standard backup configuration. Use this option only if backing up nodes in multiple regions to a single bucket.
8. Optional: For scheduled backups, indicate how long the snapshot data should be retained by selecting a Retention Policy. Retain All (default) saves the snapshot data indefinitely. Or, define a set period of time. After the snapshot data is older than the time set in Retention Policy, the snapshot data is deleted.

   DataStax strongly recommends setting a retention policy to periodically remove backups. This practice helps to avoid long-term performance issues caused by an excessive number of backups.

   Note: Setting a Retention Policy is not available for an ad hoc (Run Now) backup.
9. Click Save Location.

   The newly added S3 location displays in the Location pane of the Create or Edit Backup dialog.

   

   Click the edit icon to the edit a location and its retention policy if applicable. Click the delete icon to delete a location. The On Server location cannot be deleted.

10. Click Save Backup, or Create Backup as applicable.