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One of the major benefits of cloud storage is the ability to provide backup at scale. For major cloud providers like Google Cloud, there is an added benefit of having a number of different storage options, which offer organizations flexibility in terms of customizing the availability they require, according to their budget.
This is part of an extensive series of guides about data breaches.
In this post, we’ll examine the backup storage options offered by Google Cloud, and show how NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP can help with managing cloud storage.
In this article, you will learn:
- Google backup and archival storage
- How Google Cloud backup works
- Google Cloud backup availability SLAs
- Data import and export
- Google Cloud Backup with Cloud Volumes ONTAP
Google Cloud Backup and Archival Storage
Google Cloud offers two primary backup options:
NearLine Storage
This option is intended for data that users need to access no more than once per month, for example backups and multimedia content only occasionally accessed by users.
ColdLine Storage
This option is for data that can be accessed no more than once per year (for example, disaster recovery backups of key systems), or possibly not at all (for example data held for compliance reasons).
A key differentiator of both Google Cloud Storage options, compared to archival storage in other cloud providers, is that they offer access to data with sub-millisecond latency. When you do need the data, you can get it instantly.
Below is a comparison of features provided by each of Google’s backup option:
| NearLine Storage | ColdLine Storage |
| At Rest Cost Per GB of $0.01* | At Rest Cost Per GB of $0.007* |
| Retrieval Cost Per GB of $0.01* | Retrieval Cost Per GB of $0.05* |
| 30-day minimum duration | 90-day minimum duration |
* Prices are subject to change, please see Google’s latest pricing.
How Google Cloud Backup Works
Google Cloud offers backup as an integral part of the Google Cloud Storage service. Google Cloud Storage provides three storage classes that can be assigned to any object you store:
- Standard
- NearLine
- ColdLine
Google Cloud Storage buckets are assigned to one of these three classes, and any objects stored to them are given that class by default. For example, you can create a bucket and assign it a Coldline storage class, then store objects to that class if you need to archive them for the long term. For more details on setting storage classes to buckets, see the official documentation
You can also set a specific storage class for an object or a group of objects, different from the default of the bucket. You can do this when uploading the object, or at a later time using two methods:
- Overwriting the object and changing its storage class, using GSUTIL or the REST API (see official documentation)
- Using Object Lifecycle Management to define a Time to Live (TTL) or other parameters for an object, which causes it to switch to NearLine or ColdLine storage classes automatically after a certain period of time (see official documentation)
Google Cloud Backup Availability SLAs
Each of the three classes of storage has a different guaranteed Service Level Agreement (SLA) for availability. The SLA depends on the option you select for geo-redundancy—Google Cloud lets you store data in one region, or duplicate it two regions or multiple regions. Data availability will naturally be higher, the more redundancy you provide. SLA is also lower for NearLine and ColdLine storage options, compared to standard storage.
Standard Storage Availability
| Geo-Redundancy | Guaranteed SLA | Typical Availability |
| multi-region | 99.95% | >99.99% |
| dual-region | 99.95% | >99.99% |
| single region | 99.9% | 99.99% |
NearLine and ColdLine Storage Availability
| Geo-Redundancy | Availability SLA | Typical Availability |
| multi-region | 99.9% | 99.95% |
| dual-region | 99.9% | 99.95% |
| single region | 99.0% | 99.9% |
Data Import and Export Options
In addition to backing up data within Google Cloud Platform, you may sometimes want to backup data elsewhere, or on-premises. In the opposite direction, you may also want to import large amounts of data in bulk to the Google Cloud Storage service.
Google Cloud ConsoleDownloading or Uploading Objects
Google Cloud Storage provides several options for uploading and downloading objects:
- GSUTIL
- SDK for C++, C#, GO, Java, Node.js, PHP, Python, and Ruby
- REST API
Google has several best practices for uploading objects in bulk, which mostly also apply to downloading in bulk:
- Do not close and re-open the connection if upload stalls. XHR callbacks can get backlogged behind acknowledgement from the upload stream.
- Set reasonably long timeouts. If you don’t receive an XHR callback for a long time, don’t close the connection.
- For resumable uploads, keep the session in the region in which it was originally created. This reduces cross-region traffic, which can hurt performance.
- Don’t break a transfer into smaller chunks, upload all the content at one time. This will improve throughput and reduce latency.
- Avoid uploading content that has GZIP encoding and a content-type that is compressed.
Offline Media Import/Export
Google lets you send a storage array, hard disk, tapes, or USB flash drive, and have their content uploaded to the Cloud Storage service. Similarly, you can ask to receive a physical storage device with data downloaded from your Google Cloud Storage buckets. This is done by third-party providers, as listed here.
You can outsource the transfer of files to a third-party service provider who uploads data on your behalf. Offline media import / export is helpful if you’re limited to a slow, unreliable, or expensive Internet connection.
Google Cloud Backup with Cloud Backup
NetApp understands ONTAP better than anyone else, which is why the best backup solution for ONTAP systems is NetApp Cloud Backup. Designed by NetApp specifically for ONTAP, Cloud Backup automatically creates block-level incremental forever backups. These copies are stored in object format and preserve all ONTAP’s storage efficiencies. Your backups are 100X faster to create, easy to restore, and much more reliable than with any other solution.
Cloud Backup simplifies the entire backup process. It’s intuitive, quick to deploy, and managed from the same console as the rest of the NetApp cloud ecosystem. Whether you’re looking for a less expensive way to store your backups, a faster, more capable technology than NDMP, or an easy way to enable a 3-2-1 strategy, Cloud Backup offers the best backup solution for ONTAP.
Want to learn more about Google Cloud Backup?
Read our articles:
Google Cloud Snapshot: Data Backup and Restoration
Snapshots play a key role in data protection and data availability and are a major component of the Google Cloud Backup architecture. The snapshots are taken incrementally, allowing users to create point-in-time backups and save them to Google’s cloud storage.
This article details how to perform the basic functions of Google Cloud snapshots and explains how they work, including creating an ad-hoc snapshot for a persistent disk and using a snapshot schedule to automatically backup persistent disks. The post also covers best practices and demonstrates how NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP can boost performance and reduce snapshot storage costs.
Read Google Cloud Snapshot: Data Backup and Restoration here.
Google Cloud Compute Engine Snapshots: A How-To Guide
Compute Engine is a Google Cloud service that allows users to deploy and manage Google Cloud Instances. The service involves different backup policies and it’s important to get acquainted with the various options.
In this post we will take a look at Google Cloud Snapshot and how to use it with Google Cloud Compute Engine. Snapshots are often selected as a method to perform quick and periodic disk backup. Using a step-by-step guide, the article will show you how to create and restore a persistent disk snapshot that is associated with a Google Cloud Instance. It will also dive into how deploying Google Cloud with Cloud Volumes ONTAP offers even more backup capabilities for Google Cloud Instances.
Read Google Cloud Compute Engine Snapshots: A How-To Guide here.
Google Cloud Storage Retention Policy: A How-To Guide
Setting your storage retention policies is a crucial step in meeting your organization’s compliance and governance requirements. Google Cloud Storage, Google Cloud’s object storage service, provides built-in functionality to configure data retention policies per bucket, preventing premature deletion of data, regardless of other security permissions.
This article explains how to make the most of Google Cloud Storage retention policies, showing you how to define these policies for each of your buckets. In a step-by-step guide, you’ll find out how to create a new Google Cloud Storage bucket, set up a retention policy for that bucket, remove an existing policy from a bucket, and lock buckets to permanently set their retention policies.
Read Google Cloud Storage Retention Policy: A How-To Guide here.
Google Cloud Automatic Backup: How to Use Schedules to Back Up Persistent Disks
There are different approaches to keeping data safe and recoverable in Google Cloud. Manual snapshots often can’t be generated quickly or frequently enough to ensure data protection. Leveraging the automated scheduling capabilities of snapshots in Google Compute Engine is therefore a crucial part of protecting data on Google Cloud.
This post explains how to schedule snapshots to back up Google Cloud persistent disks. It provides a step-by-step guide to creating a snapshot schedule and attaching it to a persistent disk. It also explains how Cloud Volumes ONTAP serves as another resource for data recovery in Google Cloud.
Read Google Cloud Automatic Backup: How to Use Schedules to Back Up Persistent Disks here.
Google Cloud Disaster Recovery and Data Protection with Cloud Volumes ONTAP
Just as with any IT deployment, in Google Cloud, disaster recovery and data protection capabilities are critical. And while the native services Google Cloud currently offers give users a good place to start when it comes to protecting their data, some assembly may be required, so to speak.
This post gives an overview of the disaster recovery/data protection use case, details the available Google Cloud disaster recovery and data protection capabilities, and shows how Cloud Volumes ONTAP can significantly enhance those capabilities through the use of point-in-time snapshots, automatic failover and failback DR processes, space efficient storage technologies, and (coming soon), ensured business continuity with the high availability configuration.
Read Google Cloud Disaster Recovery and Data Protection with Cloud Volumes ONTAP here.
See Additional Guides on Key Data Breach Topics
Together with our content partners, we have authored in-depth guides on several other topics that can also be useful as you explore the world of data breach.
Data Protection
Authored by Cloudian
- What is Data Protection and Privacy?
- What is Data Encryption? The Ultimate Guide
- Continuous Data Protection
Cloud Database
Authored by NetApp
- SAP Uses in the Cloud: Case Studies with Cloud Volumes ONTAP
- Hosting Databases in the Cloud: 5 Points to Consider
- NoSQL vs SQL Database: What is the difference
Business Continuity Plan
Authored by Faddom
