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Configure AWS Replication

Replication copies recent backup media to other regions or accounts for disaster recovery, isolation, or regulatory requirements.

Choose Replication Targets​

Define where replicas should be stored:

  • Secondary AWS regions.
  • Dedicated backup accounts.
  • Separate accounts owned by a platform, security, or recovery team.

Confirm that target accounts and regions have the required IAM roles, snapshot copy permissions, and KMS key access.

Apply Replication Tags​

Use a replication policy tag to define how many recent copies to keep in each target region. A common pattern is:

gig-replicate=2@us-west-1;3@eu-west-1

This example keeps:

  • 2 recent copies in us-west-1.
  • 3 recent copies in eu-west-1.

Replication jobs run after successful backup jobs, so only valid backup media is copied.

Validate Encryption Access​

For encrypted media:

  • Source KMS keys must allow the copy operation.
  • Target KMS keys must allow Cloudaware or the target role to encrypt replicated media.
  • Cross-account copies require key grants or key policy updates.

Verify Replicas​

After replication jobs run, verify:

  • The latest replicas exist in each target region or account.
  • Replica counts match policy.
  • Old replicas are cleaned up when they exceed the configured count.
  • Failed replication jobs generate alerts or tickets.

Use Verify Backup Status for the validation workflow.