Backups¶
The whitesky.cloud NV Backups feature exports virtual machines to S3-compatible cloud storage using Restic. Restic provides deduplication (minimising storage use), encryption, and integrity verification.
Operator feature
Customer admins find Backups under Admin → Backups, with the tabs Targets, Policies and Workers (see Backup Workers below). Cloud Admins have their own Backups page with the tabs Targets, Policies and Settings. The nav entry only appears if backups is enabled for your portal — if you don't see it, ask your platform operator to confirm it's turned on.
The Cloud Admin Backups section has three tabs:
| Tab | Purpose |
|---|---|
| TARGETS | S3-compatible storage locations where backups are saved |
| POLICIES | Rules defining when backups run and how long they are retained |
| SETTINGS | Per-location controls for customer backup permissions |
Tip
Before creating policies, you must have at least one active backup target with a subscribed location. Without a target, policies cannot store any backup data.
Backup Targets¶
A backup target is an S3-compatible storage location. You can use any S3-compatible provider (MinIO, AWS S3, Backblaze B2, etc.) as a target.
Creating a Backup Target¶
- Open the TARGETS tab.
- Click ADD BACKUP TARGET.
- The wizard has two steps. In S3 information, enter the S3 configuration details — all required: URL, Region, Access key, Secret key, Bucket name, and a Locking mode: NO LOCKING, GOVERNANCE or COMPLIANCE (the S3 locking modes help button explains the options). See the S3 Backup Guide for what each of these means.
- In Basic information, enter a Name, a Restic password and Confirm password for the target (the RESTIC PASSWORD NOTES button explains the password). Step 1 does not validate the S3 connection.
- Click SUBMIT.
Tip
Store your Restic password securely. Losing this password permanently prevents access to all backups stored on this target.
Subscribing a Location to a Target¶
To back up VMs in a specific location, subscribe the location to the target. A target can be subscribed to multiple locations — you just can't subscribe the same location twice.
- Open the target's details page.
- Click SUBSCRIBE LOCATION.
- Select the location, then the customer, then the cloudspace through which the target will access backups.
- Click SUBMIT.
After subscribing, VMs in that location can be assigned backup policies that use this target.
Removing a Location Subscription¶
To remove a location from a target, navigate to the target's details page and use the appropriate unsubscribe action for the location.
Backup Policies¶
A backup policy defines the schedule, retention rules, and retry behaviour for backups of your VMs.
Creating a Backup Policy¶
- Open the POLICIES tab.
- Click ADD BACKUP POLICY.
- The wizard has three steps. In Configure snapshot policy, set the snapshot settings:
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| cooperative | Enable/disable cooperative backup mode (checked by default) |
| cooperative timeout | Timeout for cooperative backups (default 30) |
| Cooperative Failure Behaviour | Action on failure (default RETRY_IF_SNAPSHOT_TIMEOUT) |
| Timeout | Overall backup process timeout (default 10) |
| Retry pause | Wait time between retry attempts (default 60) |
| Retry times | Number of retries before giving up (default 3) |
- In Frequency & retention policy, configure schedule and retention:
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Use custom frequency (switch) and Frequency | Backup frequency — select from the Frequency drop-down (for example Daily), or switch on a custom frequency (cron expression) |
| Use custom retention flags (switch) | Restic retention rules. See Restic Retention Flags Guide; the RESTIC RETENTION FLAGS button opens the help |
| Hourly, Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Yearly | How many backups of each kind to keep (all 0 by default) |
| Failure report email | Email address to receive failure notifications (required) |
- In Configuration Details, enter the Policy Name (required).
- Click ADD (or CANCEL).
Assigning a Policy to a VM¶
The VM details page has two separate pages for this, both under MORE: Backups (the snapshot history) and Assigned backup policies (which policies apply to the VM). Assigning happens from the latter.
- Customer Permissions: Decide whether customers are allowed to define their own backup policies and targets. If disabled, only the Cloud Admin can create and manage backup policies and targets.
- Mandatory Backup Policies: Enforce a rule requiring all newly created VMs in this location to have at least one backup policy assigned at the time of creation.
Sizing Backup Workers¶
A backup worker is the compute instance that runs Restic to read the virtual machine's virtual disks (vDisks), deduplicate and encrypt the data, and stream it to the backup target. How you size a worker determines both how reliably backups complete and how fast they run.
The worker form is pre-filled with 1 vCPU, 1 GiB (1024 MiB) of RAM and 2000 IOPS. That is a minimal starting point and is not enough for larger workloads; the matrix below recommends 1 GiB of memory even for vDisks up to 100 GiB. The memory field can be lowered as far as its minimum of 128 MiB.
What drives worker sizing¶
- Memory (RAM) is the most important factor. Restic keeps its deduplication index in memory while a backup runs, and the index grows with the total amount of data being processed. If a worker runs out of memory, the backup fails rather than slowing down — so RAM is the resource to increase first when backing up large vDisks.
- vCPUs determine throughput. Restic uses CPU for compression, encryption, and deduplication, so more vCPUs mean faster backups, especially for large or frequently changing disks.
- IOPS control how quickly the worker can read from the source vDisks and write to the S3 target. Low IOPS becomes the bottleneck on large or busy disks.
The main input to sizing is the size of the vDisks being backed up. Use the largest single vDisk (or the combined size when one worker backs up several disks) to pick a row from the matrix below.
Recommended sizing matrix¶
| vDisk size (largest / combined) | vCPUs | Memory (RAM) | IOPS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Up to 100 GiB | 1 | 1 GiB | 2000 |
| 100 GiB – 500 GiB | 2 | 2 GiB | 3000 |
| 500 GiB – 1 TiB | 2 | 4 GiB | 5000 |
| 1 TiB – 2 TiB | 4 | 8 GiB | 7500 |
| 2 TiB – 4 TiB | 4 | 16 GiB | 10000 |
| More than 4 TiB | 8 | 16–32 GiB | 15000+ |
Note: These are general best-practice recommendations. Actual requirements also depend on how much data changes between backups, how many VMs a single worker handles, and how many backups run at the same time.
Best practices¶
- Start from the default and scale up. Begin with the form default of 1 vCPU / 1 GiB for small VMs and move up one tier if backups are slow or fail.
- Increase RAM first when backups fail. An out-of-memory worker is the most common cause of failed backups for large vDisks.
- Increase vCPUs and IOPS to make backups faster. If backups complete but run too long, add vCPUs and raise IOPS before adding more memory.
- Spread the load across multiple workers. Rather than sizing one very large worker to cover many VMs, create additional workers so backups can run in parallel and a single failure has a smaller impact.
- Re-check sizing as data grows. vDisks and change rates grow over time — revisit worker sizing periodically and after adding large VMs.
Creating a Backup Worker¶
On the customer Workers tab, adding a worker is a three-step wizard: Location (clicking a location row advances to the next step), Compute size (vCPUs 1, Memory 1024 MiB and Speed 2000 IOPS by default) and Configuration Details (Worker name, required). Click ADD (or CANCEL) to finish.
Syncing a Target¶
On the backup target details page, each subscribed location has a sync icon that triggers a sync of that location's backup repository.
Repository Overview Tab¶
The backup target details page has a Repository Overview tab listing all VMs in the restic repository, with a Delete all backups action per VM.
Editing a Backup Target¶
A backup target can be edited (name, description, S3 endpoint details) via the Edit action, but only when no locations are currently subscribed.
Manual Backup Creation¶
On the VM's Backups page (under MORE), click BACKUP to trigger an on-demand backup. Select a policy and confirm.
Restoring from a Backup¶
On the VM's Backups page, each succeeded backup has a restore icon. Clicking it navigates to the Create VM page pre-filled with the backup's disk data.
VM Backups Overview Page¶
From the Repository Overview tab, clicking a VM navigates to a per-VM backup detail page showing all backups for that VM.
Backup Details Page¶
Each individual backup has a detail page showing its status, size, and metadata.
Pre-release Feature Gate¶
The Backups section is gated behind a pre-release feature flag. It only appears in the portal when the backups feature is enabled for the platform.