For almost a decade, N2WS Backup and Recovery has been a trusted tool for protecting organizations from data loss in the AWS cloud. Frequent and customer-requested innovations and improvements are part of what makes it the #1 backup tool on the AWS Marketplace.
Just recently, the latest version of N2WS Backup and Recovery, v3.0, became globally available. This article will summarize the new features included in this version before providing a detailed guide to one of the most exciting new features—Resource Control.
What’s New in N2WS Backup and Recovery v3.0?
Here’s a list of N2WS Backup and Recovery’s newest features:
- A completely new user interface—includes a new dashboard that provides insight into backups and offers visual representations of costs and savings.
- NEW Recovery Scenarios—allows you to define various sequences of recovery for your backup targets during a recovery session and perform dry runs.
- NEW Cost Explorer—shows you the EBS snapshot costs for each of your policies.
- Resource Control calculates NEW Cost Savings—helps predict your infrastructure’s future cost savings.
- Policy Time Zone—enables you to choose the time zone for each of your backup schedules.
- Enhanced data lifecycle management using NEW Archive to AWS Glacier—helps you reduce your backup costs while staying compliant with regulations by transitioning your S3-stored backups to Amazon Glacier cost storage.
- Announcements—receive immediate updates via new user interface
The rest of this post will be dedicated to exploring and detailing how to use Recovery Scenarios, cost transparency tools and more.
The Need for a Cloud Backup Solution
Our AWS Cloud Data Protection Report for 2020 outlined a dangerous lack of overall security in the cloud. Many companies still lag behind in a number of areas, but they are especially vulnerable in the area of business continuity. Even though the establishment of proper backup plans, the automation of EC2 backups, and the regular performance of AWS disaster recovery drills should be standard parts of every organization’s security plan, many companies are still ignoring these precautions and risking everything to save time and money. Stories about businesses that were unprepared when a disaster occurred abound.
Clearly, companies need an efficient and effective tool to ensure the stability and endurance of their cloud environments. While there are many great options out there, most lack some important features. For example, AWS Backup is a good service for backing up your data within the AWS cloud, but it only works with a few selected services and can’t span multiple AWS accounts nor does it have multi-tenancy capabilities.
N2WS Backup and Recovery was developed to address the need for a comprehensive and automated cloud backup tool that addresses these needs and much more.
N2WS Backup And Recovery Overview
N2WS Backup and Recovery has matured from a fresh cloud native product to a seasoned, well-rounded backup tool. Over the last few years, there have been improvements to existing features, and a number of new features have been added as well.
N2WS Backup and Recovery had already expanded to include backup to S3, reducing the overall cost of storing backups by up to a staggering 98%. Now, with the new Archive to AWS Glacier option, the potential for savings is even greater.
The VPC Capture and Clone feature reduced the time required to replicate your networking from hours to mere moments. And, support for the RESTful API has made it easy to link N2WS Backup and Recovery to any third party solution.
EFS backups made life much easier by allowing you to skip custom scripts and manual processes when backing up and restoring EFS. This feature also allows you to restore your EFS volumes to another region or another AWS account.
The Enhanced File Level Recovery option enabled users to access a few files without having to restore entire volumes, and the better reporting offered by previous versions facilitated the production of expense information.
N2WS Backup and Recovery stands out because of its ability to be the one tool that unifies and centralizes all of your AWS backup needs. The brand-new v3.0 features a completely re-engineered user interface, which includes a new dashboard offering insights into backup status and potential cost savings in addition to the new features described below.
N2WS v3.0: New Features
Recovery Scenarios
After a disaster, you usually have to get a lot of resources up and running quickly. Prior to the advent of N2WS Backup and Recovery v3.0, each resource had to be recovered individually, a process which consumed a lot of valuable time. With this recent update, you can now configure recovery scenarios that include multiple resources being recovered together. And, since each environment has its own unique requirements and dependencies, you can choose the order in which your target resources will be restored. You can also execute various pre- and post-backup scripts while new instances are being spun in another region or account, giving you additional flexibility.
Recovery Scenarios is accessed using the dashboard’s sidebar.
After you open the feature, click on “New” to create a new recovery scenario.
Choose a name for it, then choose a recovery destination account and preferred region. Make sure you select options that align with your backup and DR plans.
You must also choose a policy to which the recovery is performed. Each policy can hold several recovery scenarios. In order to configure the recoveries, recovery targets should be added which will hold recovery details.
When you’re done with this set up, you can run your recovery scenario selecting the backup to use, or keep making changes to it until you are happy with the results.
There is now a dry run option for Recovery Scenarios. It allows you the opportunity to tweak various recovery scenario parameters for optimal security, reducing any risk of downtime.
Cost Savings and Cost Explorer
The Cost Savings and Cost Explorer fields are at the bottom of the new dashboard. Because the trial account we’re using in this tutorial is brand-new, there are no costs and savings to be seen yet in the screenshot below.
The Cost Savings field helps you align your spending with your actual budget. It shows your future monthly cost savings based on how much you’re using Resource Control, a feature that allows you to turn off unused resources to reduce overall spending.
The Cost Explorer feature allows you to better understand and manage your AWS backup costs and usage. It shows you the total sum of your past spending (Please note that the policies must be in place for at least 48 hours in order for calculation to take place).
New Time Zone
When working with large—and, especially, multi-region—environments, it can be very challenging to organize your backup and recovery processes, since they might span various different time zones. N2WS Backup and Recovery’s New Time Zone feature allows you to choose the time zone for each of your backup schedules, allowing to you design fine-grained policies for each of the resources that you need to protect.
Improved Reporting and Logs
Version 3.0 includes reworked reporting. Not only is it more easily accessed, it also offers enhanced filtering. It’s now easier than ever for clients to create various backup reports with all existing records or to filter reports based on a custom parameter.
New detailed logs show you all of the individual operational activity logs that have occured within N2WS Backup and Recovery. These logs can also be downloaded based on specified time periods.
Trial N2WS Backup & Recovery v3.0 For Free
Version 3.0 of N2WS Backup and Recovery represents the single largest launch since it was first released. With Archive to Glacier, Recovery Scenarios, New Time Zone options, Cost Explorer and Cost Savings, and, of course, the new UI and dashboard, N2WS is able to provide efficency, security and significant cost and time savings for IT teams securing their AWS.
Explore powerful, backup and DR for your applications, data and workloads on AWS by configuring a 30 day Free Trial.
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