Creating custom policies

If the needs of your data protection environment are not covered with any of the predefined policies, you can create a new policy and tailor it to your needs. In this case, besides setting the desired RPO, the retention period for the backup data, and the target, you can also enable one or more additional policy options for optimal policy implementation.

You can also enable one or more of the following policy options:

Policy option Allows you to...
Backup Window

Start all backup tasks within specified time frames to improve effectiveness and avoid an overload of your environment. For details, see “Creating backup windows”.
Copy Create a copy of backup data.
Archiving

Preserve your data for future reference. For details, see “Creating data archives”.
Labels

Set up automatic policy assignment based on the labels or tags added to the instances in Amazon EC2, or the buckets in Amazon S3.

Prerequisites

  • Only if you plan to select a manually created target. A bucket must be added to HYCU for AWS as a target. For instructions, see “Setting up targets”.

  • Only if you plan to enable the Backup Window policy option. A backup window must exist for the selected HYCU for AWS protection set. For instructions, see “Creating backup windows”.

  • Only if you plan to enable the Archiving policy option. A data archive must exist for the selected HYCU for AWS protection set. For instructions, see “Creating data archives”.

  • Only if you plan to enable the Labels policy option.

    • The labels that you plan to specify in HYCU for AWS must be added to instances in Amazon EC2 as labels (preferred) or to buckets in Amazon S3 as bucket labels.

      For instructions on how to do this, see AWS documentation.

Considerations

  • HYCU for AWS automatically associates the resource with one of the pricing tiers based on the value of the Backup every option that you set in the policy. However, if you are storing data as a snapshot and have enabled the Archiving option, the pricing tier is automatically set to bronze regardless of the specified RPO.

  • If you want that your data to be stored as a snapshot and on a target, make sure to select the Snapshot backup target type and also enable the Copy policy option.

  • Only if you plan to enable the Labels policy option.

    • Labels that you specify in policies in HYCU for AWS must be unique within the selected protection set.

    • When matched, the hycu‑policy custom tag takes precedence over other labels or tags that might be added to the same instance in Amazon EC2 or to the same bucket in Amazon S3. For more information on the hycu‑policy tag, see “Setting up automatic policy assignment”.

  • Only if you plan to store backup data on a target. Backup and restore speed depends on the region of the chosen target and the regions of the instances . The optimum speed is achieved when the target and the instances reside in the same region.

To access the Policies panel, in the navigation pane, click  Policies. Alternatively, in the Dashboard panel, click the Policies widget title.

Procedure

  1. In the Policies panel, click  New. The New Policy dialog box opens.

  2. Enter a name for your policy and, optionally, its description.

  3. Enable the required policy options by clicking them (the Backup policy option is mandatory and therefore enabled by default). The following policy options are available:

    • Backup Window
    • Copy
    • Archiving
    • Labels

  4. In the Backup section, do the following:

    1. In the Backup every fields, set the RPO (in months, weeks, days, hours, or minutes).

      n Note  You can set the RPO to 30 minutes in the following cases:

      • If you are storing data only as a snapshot.
      • If you are storing data as a snapshot and have enabled the Archiving option.

      For all other cases, the minimum RPO is one hour.

    2. In the Retention fields, set a retention period (in months, weeks, or days) for the backup data.

    3. Select one of the following backup target types:

      • Snapshot

      • Target

        From the Target drop-down menu, select the target that you want to use for storing data.

        If you select the Automatically selected option, HYCU for AWS creates a bucket in the region of the instance and uses it as a target for storing the data. If an automatically created bucket already exists, it is used instead.

        i Important  Automatically created targets can be selected only if you plan to protect instance data (and not bucket data).

  5. Depending on which policy options you have enabled, do the following:

    Policy option Instructions
    Backup Window

    In the Backup Window section, from the Backup window drop-down menu, select a backup window for backup tasks.

    If you do not select a backup window, the Always value is shown, which means that your backups are allowed to run at any time.
    Copy

    In the Copy section, do the following:

    1. Set a retention period (in months, weeks, or days) for the copy of backup data.

    2. From the Target drop-down menu, select a target that you want to use for storing data.

      If you want the target to be selected automatically, make sure the Automatically selected option is selected. In this case, HYCU for AWS creates a bucket in the region of the instance and uses it as a target for storing the data. If an automatically created bucket already exists, it is used instead. If you want to select a manually created target, make sure that this target is different from the one you selected for the backup.
    Archiving

    In the Archiving section, from the Data archive drop-down menu, select a data archive.
    Labels

    In the Labels section, enter a label key and value, and then click Add. If required, repeat the action as appropriate.

    For details on automatic policy assignment, see “Setting up automatic policy assignment”.

  6. Click Save.

The policy is created and added to the list of policies. For details on managing policies, see “Managing policies”.