How To Set AWS Automated Backup For An eCommerce Store?

Cloud platforms like AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud are increasingly getting popular among e-commerce websites and web stores across the niches. Many leading e-commerce websites and stores are already using AWS platforms to their advantage. Even smaller web stores with the help of custom eCommerce solution services are also gearing up to make their presence felt through cloud-based services. From Snapdeal to Amazon, every major player is already hooked up with cloud platforms and as the leading platform, AWS has the biggest share across enterprise websites and e-commerce stores.

Besides many other advantages that cloud platforms offer to websites and e-commerce stores, automated backup is one of the most important ones. AWS enjoys a clear edge over other cloud platforms thanks to its robust and pretty enterprise-minded backup automation tools. For example, the AWS EC2 backup comes as a very easy to use solution and is great for the servers as well as the client-side apps.

If you have an e-commerce store you already know the robust features of the AWS platform to transform your shopping experience. Implementing the automated backup feature of AWS requires knowing the building blocks of the process and corresponding stages. Let’s have a look at them.

Amazon EFS

The AWS backup feature actually integrates with EFS as a native feature, the I/O operations carried out by the AWS backup will not face the constraints of the mode limits of EFS. The best thing is, the automated backup even can help to transition the entire file system of EFS to a low-cost storage option.

Using AWS Backup with Other AWS Services

Apart from taking automated backup of the EFS files, the automated AWS Backup can also work great with multiple AWS services and protocols such as EBS, RDS, DynamoDB, and Storage Gateway, the best thing is, using this automated backup option doesn’t require any additional cost. Your e-commerce store continues to pay the same to restore cost and snapshot storage for these services.

Assigning Resources

If you are using AWS backup for your store, you need to know a little about assigning resources to the respective backup plans.; you can either generate resource ID or just can tag for utilizing resources. The tagging approach is more effective for assigning resources simply because it would be much easier to assign any resource to a backup plan by just using a tag. On the other hand, static IDs of resources can make managing the assignment process for backups cumbersome.

The best thing is, AWS Backup allows its users to assign the resources by using multiple tags to a particular backup plan. The assignment of resources with each backup plan can be done by tagging as per the environments as well. To take full advantage of automated backups with this tagging capability to designate resources, it is advisable to embrace a tagging strategy. With a well-planned tagging strategy maintaining and managing the entire automated backup on AWS becomes easier.

Maintaining the Schedules

Just when you have your own backup plan, you should come up with some specific rules to meet a schedule focusing on productivity and output. Besides making a schedule you should also determine the window, lifecycle rules, and several other important features. While the creation of a simple backup schedule can only be chosen from the dropdown menus, you can use other features for complex backup schedules. For this AWS platform to allow complex backup schedules, you can just utilize the cron expressions.

Explaining the Resource Relationships

In many cases for security compliance of the system or for auditing, you need to establish the relationships among the resources. Which resource is associated with which app attribute should clearly explain that to make things simple and effective. While there are many approaches to solve the problem, you can always enable the recording of AWS Config configuration of the AWS resources. This is a very effective way to track and find relationships among resources.

Avoiding Overlaps

Sometimes when you use third-party scripts or AWS Lambda functions for grabbing resource snapshots on the AWS platform, there is always a chance of overlaps in the process. This ultimately can make the entire backup process ineffective. You need to keep a strong watch on the process so that there is no overlap in the process.

Learn: The Key Advantages for Businesses to Take Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud

Assigning Resources Regionally

A great feature of automated AWS Backup is the support for assigning the resources within the same region. If you want to assign resources regionally, you need to frame a separate backup plan for regional resources. You can always find the listed regions for automated backup support in the AWS Region table.

Restore Validation and Testing

AWS automated backup process can further be augmented with more data security measures like frequent and timely testing as well as restore validation. The restore testing and validation also help your future backup processes as you know the nooks and corners maintaining successful recovery.

Managing Permissions for Encryption

As and when the automated AWS Backup handles encrypted resources like the EBS volumes, the permission for encrypting the resources needs to be granted to the AWS Backup IAM service. You may find more helpful information about adding this service role in Editing Keys.

Keeping Within Service Limits

Every enterprise website or e-commerce store using AWS services and automated backups know that the usage of the backup volume is bound to grow over time. As the footprint of backup grows, you are likely to check the service limits of your package crossing which your backups may fail. To keep track of these limits and stay within them you can use AWS Trusted Advisor which will give you reports and alerts about the service limits on every service. This will help you to increase service limits incrementally when you are close to the threshold of crossing the barrier.

Conclusion

So, implementing AWS automated backups stores can be very productive for your web store or enterprise website if you are aware of the constraints and the ways to deal with them. On a versatile and scalable platform like AWS, implementing backups seems to be pretty easier if you remember these tips.