Getting started with Backup and Recovery for VPC (VSIs) workloads

Before you begin

You need the following to get started with IBM Cloud Backup and Recovery:

• An IBM Cloud® Platform account
• An active instance of IBM Cloud Backup and Recovery that is covered in Set up a IBM Cloud Backup and Recovery deployment
• You need to start the dashboard of your backup service instance to create, manage, and monitor backup policies

Workload availability

High-level overview of getting started

This section assumes you’re starting from scratch without any existing resources. It guides you through creating new instances; however, you can choose to use your existing resources instead if you have them. If you create new instances, note that this increases your monthly costs. To avoid additional charges, be sure to stop your VSI at the end of the getting started steps.

Set up a IBM Cloud Backup and Recovery deployment

1. Deploy a Backup and Recovery instance.

   1. Create a IBM Cloud Backup and Recovery instance.
      1. Information: By default your instance is automatically encrypted. Optionally, you can bring your own key by supplying the key CRN.
      2. Information: When following best practices, it is recommended that you create your IBM Cloud Backup and Recovery instance in the same location as your source server.
   2. Open your IBM Cloud Backup and Recovery instance and Launch Dashboard.

2. Create a Data Source Connection in IBM Cloud Backup and Recovery

   For this step, you are setting up a Data Source Connection from inside your IBM Cloud Backup and Recovery instance.

   1. In the IBM Cloud Backup and Recovery Dashboard, navigate to System > Data Source Connections and click New Connection.
   2. Select VPC in the Deployment Platform dropdown.
   3. Copy or download the token as you need this later.
   4. Then click Create a VPC Data Source Connector, which opens the IBM Cloud catalog in a new tab.

3. Deploy a IBM Cloud Backup and Recovery Data Source Connector (Connector VSI)

   In this step, you to need to create a Data Source Connector instance (Connector VSI) for the previous step’s Data Source Connection.

   1. The Data source connector is a Virtual Server deployed that uses a custom image, which contains the connector software. The first catalog page shows the details about this image. Click Continue to progress to the Virtual Server provisioning page.
   2. On the VSI provisioning page:
      1. Set the same location as you set for the IBM Cloud Backup and Recovery instance.
      2. Enter details and Server configs (you can leave it on the default).
      3. Create or select an SSH key.
      4. Create or select a VPC, which contains the workload that you are backing up.
      5. Click Create virtual server.

4. Make the connector for VSI accessible from your local machine [Non production only]

   1. Reserve or bind an existing Floating IP address to the Connector VSI to allow public access to the Connector configuration UI.
   2. Create a new security group rule to open the following ports to the VSI connector:
      1. On the VSI instance, navigate to the Networking tab,
      2. Open Security group link and change the inbound rule to Any.
   3. Copy and paste the Floating IP in a new browser tab to open the UI. This can take up to five minutes to be ready.
   4. It is possible that your browser flags the IP being insecure due to not using https, continue through this.

5. Access and configure Connector VSI in IBM Cloud Backup and Recovery UI

   1. From the login page, use username: admin, password: admin to start, then set up a new username and password. Password requirements are: must be at least 8 characters long and cannot include the word admin.
   2. From the Connector Configuration view, enter a Domain name (for example, cloud.ibm.com).
   3. Paste the connection claim token from the modal in a previous step into the connection claim text input.
   4. You should not need to change any other configuration parameters.
   5. Click Save.

6. Create a Virtual Private Endpoint gateway (VPE) instance for the IBM Cloud Backup and Recovery instance

   While the Connector VSI can connect to the Backup and Recovery instance, a VPE gateway provides a better performance. To create a VPE gateway, follow these steps.

   1. Create a VPE instance.
   2. Give a service name, select the correct VPC.
   3. In the Cloud Service Offering dropdown, select Backup and Recovery.
   4. Select the previously created IBM Cloud Backup and Recovery instance from the list.
   5. Click Create.

Set up the Source VSI

1. Create a Virtual Server Instance for VPC For this step, you are creating a new Ubuntu VSI.

   1. Provision a new VSI instance.
      1. Specify a server name.
      2. In the Image tile, click Change image and select any version of Ubuntu linux.
      3. You can change the profile if required; however, the default works.
      4. Create or select an SSH key: you need it to access the virtual server later.
      5. In Networking, select the VPC you deployed the Data Source Connector.
      6. Click Create.

Next, make the Source VSI accessible from your local machine by reserve or bind an existing Floating IP address to the Source VSI.

Set up a IBM Cloud Backup and Recovery agent to the source VSI

1. Download and install the IBM Cloud Backup and Recovery agent

   1. Now that you have configured the Connector with the token you can close the dialog in the Backup and Recovery Dashboard. Navigate to the Data Protection > Sources page.
   2. Click the Download Agent button and in the dialog select the Linux - Script installer. This will download the agent to your local machine but we will copy it to your source Virtual Server in the next step.

2. Install the IBM Cloud Backup and Recovery agent to Source VSI

   1. From the terminal, go to the Downloads folder (cd/Downloads) or wherever the agent installer from the previous step was downloaded.

   2. Copy the agent installer from your local environment to your source VSI using scp. For example:(Substitute necessary information in the commands.)

      scp -i .ssh/SOURCE_SSH_KEY_NAME Downloads/AGENT_FILE_NAME root@FLOATING_IP_ADDRESS_OF_SOURCE_VSI:/
      
      

   3. (Optional) Verify a copy by going to the root folder (cd) and listing files (ls). You should be able to see the IBM Cloud Backup and Recovery agent installer.

3. Format and install an agent

   1. Make the installer file an executable with the command:

      chmod +x cohesity_agent_VERSION__linux_x64_installer
      
      

      Make sure to update the VERSION placeholder with the correct version of your installer file:(Substitute necessary information in the commands.)

   2. Installing the agent requires the use of NFS. Install it on your Source VSI by running the command:

      apt install nfs-common
      
      

   3. Install the IBM Cloud Backup and Recovery agent:

      sudo ./cohesity_agent_VERSION__linux_x64_installer -- --install
      
      

   When the installation has been completed successfully, you should see a confirmation in your Terminal window.

Register the source VSI to IBM Cloud Backup and Recovery

1. Select type and register Source VSI

   1. Return to the IBM Cloud Backup and Recovery instance Dashboard, and navigate to the Data Protection > Sources page.
   2. Click the Register Source button.
   3. Select Physical from the dialog.
   4. From the dropdown, select the Data Source Connection that is created earlier.
   5. Click Continue.
   6. Copy the Reserved IP address of the Source VSI and paste in the modal. This can be found in the IBM Cloud navigation by Infrastructure → Compute → Virtual Server Instances.
   7. Click Complete.

Set up Data Protection in IBM Cloud Backup and Recovery

1. Set up a new Protection group

   1. In the IBM Cloud Backup and Recovery instance Dashboard, navigate to the Data Protection > Protection page
   2. Click Protect and select Physical server then File based.
   3. In the New Protection popup, Add Object, select your Physical Servers. It is listed as the reserved IP from the previous step.
   4. Click Continue.
   5. Add a name for the Protection Group.
   6. Select the Bronze protection policy.
   7. Bronze policy includes: taking a backup every day, retains it for 30 days and a 90 days DataLock. Learn more about policies.
   8. Click Protect

2. Verify protection group by navigating to the subpage.

   1. Open the protection group and check that a backup has started.

Next steps

Now that you are familiar with your IBM Cloud Backup and Recovery instance from the web-based console, you might be interested in doing a similar workflow from the command line. Check out using the ibmcloud backup-recovery command-line utility to create a service instance and interacting with IAM. And you can further use curl for accessing Cloud Object Storage directly. Check out the API overview to get started.

Additionally, explore the IBM Backup and Recovery Service (BRS) Module for production-ready infrastructure automation.