AWS Unveils New Data Backup Service

Amazon Web Services announced AWS Backup, a centralized service for customers to back up their data across both AWS’ public cloud as well as their on-premises data centers.The company said enterprises are having to deal with data located in multiple services such as databases, block storage, object storage, and file systems. While all of these services in AWS provide backup capabilities, customers often create custom scripts to automate scheduling, enforce retention policies, and consolidate backup activity to better meet their business and regulatory compliance requirements.AWS Backup removes the need for custom scripts by providing a centralized place to manage backups. Using the AWS Management Console, customers can create a policy that defines how frequently backups are created and how long they are stored.Bill Vass, VP of storage, automation, and management services at AWS, said in a statement that many customers want one place to go for backups versus having to do it across multiple, individual services. “Today, we are proud to make AWS Backup available with support for block storage volumes, databases, and file systems, and over time, we plan to support additional AWS services,” said Vass.Initially, AWS Backup is integrated with Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS), Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS), Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS), and AWS Storage Gateway.Customers can also back up their on-premises application data through the AWS Backup integration with AWS Storage Gateway.Ever since AWS announced its AWS Outposts offering in November 2018, it’s been making a concerted effort to include its customer’s on-premises data centers in its offerings. AWS Outposts help customers connect their on-premises environments to AWS’ services in the public cloud.The company’s recent purchase of TSO Logic is one example of its effort to help its customers across hybrid clouds. TSO Logic’s software is designed to find the optimal spot to place workloads, whether on public or private clouds.