Backup & Replication - FAQ

Question: Where are backups stored?
Answer: EC2 instances backups are stored as AMIs, and RDS backups are stored as RDS snapshots.

Question: I have enabled backups but all my instances still show up in violations tab. 
Answer: It may take up to 12 hours for the backup job to activate your account if you're just getting started with Cloudaware.

Question: Will backed up instances be rebooted?
Answer: No. Cloudaware backup method uses no-reboot option and is able to backup even Windows machines properly without a reboot.

Question: I use software based RAID across multiple EBS volumes attached to an instance. Will Cloudaware backup work in this environment?
Answer: No, Cloudaware does not support logical disks that span multiple EBS volumes. While the backup might work, we cannot guarantee that it will work every time. We recommend using IOPS optimized volumes instead of striping software raid arrays.

Question: Can you store backups outside of AWS?
Answer: There are two options. Enable replication and move backups to another region. Contact support if you want to participate in a beta for off-AWS replication.

Question: What happens to backups for terminated instances?
Answer: Backups are maintained according retention policy regardless whether the original EC2 or RDS instance still exists. In addition Cloudaware maintains full EC2 and RDS instance records details in its CMDB even after instance has been terminated from AWS.

Question: What happens to backups if I unsubscribe from Cloudaware?
Answer: You will continue to own all backup media, nothing will be deleted but new backups will be not be created. Also backups that are to be deleted in the future due to expiration will not be deleted. Cloudaware maintains all data inside tags. You will be able to correlate which AMIs belong to what instances and which RDS snapshots belong to which RDS instances using tags.

Question: Can I create custom workflows for missing backups?
Answer: Sure, you can create any workflow to trigger once a missing backup is identified.

Question: Can I get daily backup reports?
Answer: Yes, you can get them via email or Chatter notification to desktop or mobile.