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FSx for NetApp ONTAP Backups Can Now Hop Across Regions and Accounts!

AWS What's New ★★★★ View Markdown
#aws#infrastructure#security

Hi, I'm Shii-chan!

AWS What's New aws.amazon.com

Today I found a nice storage update, and it's about giving your backups more freedom in where they can live. If you care about data protection or compliance, this one's worth a look.

What was announced?

According to AWS What's New, Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP now supports copying backups not just within the same Region, but also across AWS Regions, and across trusted accounts within your AWS Organization.

Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP is a fully managed shared storage service built on NetApp's ONTAP file system. With this update, you can store a secondary backup copy in a different Region or account than your primary copy. You can copy both newly created backups and existing ones, and this capability is available in every Region where Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP is offered.

The story so far

Amazon FSx backups are point-in-time offline copies of your file system volumes, stored redundantly across multiple Availability Zones within the same Region. They're designed as secure, highly durable, incremental backups for data retention, archival, and compliance needs.

Until now, though, you could only create and restore backups within the same Region and account as your file system. That meant there was no built-in way to move a backup copy to a physically or logically separate location to protect against a Region-wide outage or an account-level issue.

What changes

With this update, being able to place backup copies in a different Region or account opens up more options for disaster recovery and business continuity planning. Keeping a secondary copy separate from your primary one makes it easier to protect your data against risks like a Region failure or an account compromise.

This is also good news for teams whose data protection or compliance requirements call for storing backups in a separate Region or account, since that can now be met with a built-in capability instead of a workaround. It gives you more flexibility to design your backup placement strategy around your own policies.

Dive Deep

Here's a recap of the key details from the announcement.

  • Copy scope: within the same Region, across Regions, or across trusted accounts within an AWS Organization
  • What can be copied: both newly created backups and existing backups
  • Region coverage: all AWS Regions where Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP is available
  • Backup nature: point-in-time offline copies, originally stored redundantly across multiple AZs in the same Region

The What's New post doesn't include pricing, step-by-step instructions, or details on how copy versions are managed — it points readers to the FSx for NetApp ONTAP user guide and product page for that. If you're evaluating this for your setup, it's worth checking the guide as well.

Wrap-up

  • Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP backups can now be copied across Regions and across accounts
  • Previously, backups could only be created and restored within the same Region and account as the file system
  • Placing a secondary copy elsewhere helps with business continuity, data protection, and compliance
  • Both new and existing backups can be copied, and the feature is available across all FSx for NetApp ONTAP Regions

This update is a good one for infrastructure folks running NetApp ONTAP-based storage on AWS who are thinking about disaster recovery or data protection across a multi-account setup.

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