Planning Block Storage for VPC snapshots

When you plan a snapshot strategy for your Block Storage for VPC volumes, you might find this checklist helpful. Remember, snapshots can be used to create copies of your volumes and the data they contain can be used to clone or replicate data to other availability zones and regions.

Planning to create and use snapshots

Consider the following topics and prerequisites before you create snapshots.

Table 1. Checklist for planning snapshots
Item	Considerations
Cloud Identity and Access Management permissions	Confirm that you have the necessary IAM access permissions to create snapshots.
Interface	Choose between the UI, CLI, API, or Terraform to create and manage your snapshots.
Volumes	Evaluate which volumes are most important to snapshot. You can create a snapshot of boot and data volumes. Evaluate the amount of change that you expect for the volumes that you intend to snapshot. A volume with numerous changes and a lengthy retention period requires more attention than a volume with moderate changes. Also, the cumulative size of all snapshots for a volume can't exceed 10 TB.
Consistency groups	You can create a consistency group to take snapshots of multiple Block Storage volumes that are attached to a single virtual server instance at the same time. The snapshots in the consistency group can be used later to restore a virtual server instance's boot and data volumes. Restoring an instance directly from snapshot consistency group identifier is not supported.
Naming conventions	Select a unique name for your snapshot or consistency group. For example, if you have a method for naming volumes, you might name snapshots by using similar conventions. It's easier to filter and search for them later. For more information, see Naming snapshots. When you create a consistency group, its name cannot exceed 64 characters. The snapshots in the consistency group are named by using the first 16 characters of the group name and 3-4 unique generated characters.
Snapshots retention	Evaluate how many snapshots to retain, how long you need to retain them, and when to delete snapshots. Review the snapshots limitations before you perform these actions.
Restoring a volume	Consider when you might want to restore a volume from a snapshot. If you need to revert to an earlier version of the volume, plan which snapshot you want to use to create the volume. Evaluate the volumes that you need to restore and attach to an instance, and the volumes that you might restore as unattached volumes.
Fast restore	Evaluate when to enable snapshots for fast restore. This feature can be used in disaster recovery scenarios when you need to restore volumes in a different zone of the same region. The fast restore feature can achieve a recovery time objectiveThe maximum duration of time within which an application should be restored after any type of disaster. (RTO) quicker than restoring from a regular snapshot. The fast restore feature is billed at an extra hourly rate for each zone that it is enabled in regardless of the size of the snapshot. Maintaining fast restore clones is considerably more costly than keeping regular snapshots.
Cross-regional copy	You can create and store a copy of a snapshot in another region, and use it to create new volumes. By using a copy of a snapshot to create volumes in the target region, your data can be replicated across regions. This feature can be used in disaster recovery scenarios when you need to start your virtual server instance and data volumes in a different region. Think about whether you need to restore data in other regions.
Virtual server instances	To create a snapshot from a volume that is attached to an instance, verify that the instance is in a running state. To create an instance from a snapshot of a boot volume, use a snapshot in the same region.
Billing	Think about the number of snapshots that you want to take. Consider whether you want to create fast-restore clones in other zones of your region. Evaluate if you need cross-regional copies. You're charged for the storage consumption and the data transfer separately. Billing for the fast restore clones is set at a flat rate based on instance hours, and it is considerably more costly than regular snapshots. For more information, see the FAQs.
Performance	Review the performance impacts for restoring a volume from a snapshot.

Next Steps

After you planned your snapshots, you can create snapshots of your volumes.