How to schedule EBS VSS Snapshots

What is VSS Backup

Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) is a popular volume backup technology in the Microsoft Windows ecosystem (compatible with most Microsoft applications, including SQL Server and Exchange Server). VSS manages disk operations, such as file writes, when a backup is in progress so that the resulting backups are application-consistent. Application-consistent backups are the backups of volumes attached to a machine or an instance, taken at the same time, along with capturing all data in memory and all transactions in progress.

Requirements

Each EC2 Instance where VSS backup will be run require to installed:

  1. SSM Agent version 2.2.58.0 or later - Update the SSM Agent

  2. Install AwsVssComponents packages under SSM - Install VSS Package

Limitation

VSS backup can be executed only on Windows Server 2008 R2 or later. It is not supporting on Windows Server 2008 R2 Core or and Linux OS.

The VSS backup is not providing option to choose which EBS volume should be backup. Other words all EBS volumes attached to the given EC2 Instance will be snapshots. The only available option is to exclude root volume from backup.

Configuration

To schedule VSS EBS backup follow these steps:

Select EC2 from the Main Menu to go to EC2 Section.

Select AWS Account and Region for the EC2 Instance you want to schedule backup.

On the EC2 Instance list, from the menu select Schedule VSS Snapshots.

In the scheduler window under the Schedule section, select VSS backup frequency: Hourly, Daily, or Monthly.

Optional settings for VSS Backup:

Exclude Boot Volume from Snapshots – When checked, the snapshot of root EBS volume will not be taken

Description – Applied to all snapshots

Template – Name of pre-configured description template. You can read more about description templates in Introduction to Description Templates

Tags – You can create multiple Tags to apply them to the new snapshots. To add a Tag, enter tag name, tag value, and click Add.

Notification – to read more about email notification go to Email Notification Settings

When you complete configuration, click Save.

A new row appears in the table below snapshots options.

In the same row are three options: Edit, Delete, and Suspend.

The first two allow you to modify or delete given scheduler; the Suspend option allows you to temporarily suspend execution of scheduler, without deleting it. When you click Suspend, the option will change to Resume, which allows the suspended schedule to be resumed in the future.

By repeating the above steps, you can create multiple schedulers for the same EC2 Instance according to different specifications.

To apply the same scheduler configuration to multiple EC2 Instances, please visit Introduction to Scheduler Templates