AWS Backup - S3 Incremental Backup and Potential Duplication

Question

We have different backup rules (e.g. daily, weekly, monthly) with different retention requirement.
Would like to find out if AWS Backup creates one full copy for each rule, or does it avoid duplication and reference the same data in the vault?

Jacky · Accepted Answer

As long as all the backups are in the same vault, there will be one full backup and all subsequent backups from different rules will be incrementals. Same applies to any on-demand backup you would request for the S3 bucket after the initial backup.

Consider backup plans are just scheduled backups based on defined interval and on-demand backup are manually triggered. It is easier to visualize they share the same backup chain or lineage.

Reference: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/aws-backup/latest/devguide/s3-backups.html

It is also recommended to check how AWS Backup handles overlapping backup rules to understand its behavior with examples given in the documentation 
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/aws-backup/latest/devguide/plan-options-and-configuration.html#backup-rules

Didier Durand · Answer

Hi,

All details about your question at https://docs.aws.amazon.com/aws-backup/latest/devguide/point-in-time-recovery-overlapping.html

```
In general, you should protect each resource with no more than one continuous
 backup rule. This is because additional continuous backups are redundant. However, 
as you scale up your backup estate, it is possible for multiple backup plans, rules, 
and vaults to overlap on a single resource. AWS Backup handles these overlaps as follows.

If you include the same resource in more than one backup plan with a continuous 
backup rule, AWS Backup will only create a continuous backup for the first backup 
plan it evaluates. It will create snapshot backups for all of the other backup plans.

If you include multiple continuous backup rules in a single backup plan:

If your rules point to the same backup vault, AWS Backup only creates a continuous 
backup for the rule with the longest retention period. It disregards all other rules.

If your rules point to different backup vaults, AWS Backup rejects the plan as not valid.
```

Best,

Didier

AWS Backup - S3 Incremental Backup and Potential Duplication

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