Setup

This page describes backup plans, which let you define advanced backupstrategies to back up your Cloud SQL and Compute Engine instances andCompute Engine disks.

In a backup plan, you can define when and how to back up a resource. You caninclude the backup frequency, the backup retention period,and thebackup vault location to store backups. When you associatea backup plan to a resource, the Backup and DR automatically backs up andretains backups for those resources according to the configuration in thebackup plan.

Before creating a backup plan, it is necessary to designate the storagelocation for your backups. To do so, you must create abackup vault.

Note: The backup vault and backup plan must be in the same project andincompatible locations.

A backup plan has backup rules, where the following applies:

• One or more backup rules can be used.

• You can define the frequency for backup creation: hourly, daily, weekly,monthly, or yearly.

  • For weekly backups, you can choose a weekday for the rule.
  • For monthly backups, you can choose a specific day of the month for therule. For example, the 15th of the month.

• You can use for both scheduled or on-demand backups.

• Includes a backup window where you can define the specific timeframe ofwhen backup jobs can start. The backup window uses the following:

  • 24-hour clock format, with start and end times between 00 and 24 hours.
  • A minimum of six hours for the window.

The backup plan always includes the boot disk even ifExclude boot disk ischecked in theData protection section ofMachine configuration, detailedinCreate an instance with additional non-boot disks.

Backup storage consumption

In a backup plan, consider the following for backup storage.

• Backups are automatically deleted after the defined backup retention periodis reached.
• The default value for backup deletion is inherited from the minimumretention period of the backup vault used to store those backups.
• Backup retention periods cannot be less than the backup vault'sminimum retention period, it must be equal to or greater than it.
• Backups created using a backup plan are always immutable and thereforecannot be modified or deleted for the duration of the backup vault'sminimum enforced retention period.

Backing up workloads to a CMEK-enabled backup vault

Once a backup vault is configured with CMEK, backups stored in it areprotected using your specified key. The following rules apply when associatinga backup plan with a CMEK-enabled vault:

• Workloads with CMEK: If a source workload is protected by CMEK (e.g., aCompute Engine instance with CMEK-encrypted disks), itmust bebacked up to a CMEK-enabled backup vault. You cannot back up aCMEK-protected resource to a backup vault that usesGoogle-owned and Google-managed encryption keys.
• Workloads with Google-owned and Google-managed encryption keys: If a sourceworkload uses Google-owned and Google-managed encryption keys, itmust be backed upto a backup vault that uses Google-owned and Google-managed encryption keys.

Backup plan supported regions

Backup plans can be created only in regions where the Backup and DRis available and where the resources to be backed up are located. To create abackup plan, a backup vault must also be available in acompatible location.If you need to create a backup plan in the unsupported regions, use thebackup templates in the management console.

Backup plan is supported in the following regions.

Geographic Area	Region Name	Region Description
North America
	northamerica-northeast1*	Montréal	Low CO2
	northamerica-northeast2	Toronto	Low CO2
	us-central1	Iowa	Low CO2
	us-east1	South Carolina
	us-east4	Northern Virginia
	us-east5	Columbus
	us-south1	Dallas	Low CO2
	us-west1	Oregon	Low CO2
	us-west2	Los Angeles
	us-west3	Salt Lake City
	us-west4	Las Vegas
	northamerica-south1*	Querétaro
South America
	southamerica-east1	São Paulo	Low CO2
	southamerica-west1	Santiago	Low CO2
Europe
	europe-central2	Warsaw
	europe-north1	Finland	Low CO2
	europe-north2	Stockholm	Low CO2
	europe-southwest1	Madrid	Low CO2
	europe-west1	Belgium	Low CO2
	europe-west2	London	Low CO2
	europe-west3	Frankfurt
	europe-west4	Netherlands	Low CO2
	europe-west6	Zürich	Low CO2
	europe-west8	Milan
	europe-west9	Paris	Low CO2
	europe-west10	Berlin
	europe-west12	Turin
Middle East
	me-central1	Doha
	me-central2	Dammam
	me-west1	Israel
Africa
	africa-south1	Johannesburg
Asia Pacific
	asia-east1	Taiwan
	asia-east2	Hong Kong
	asia-northeast1	Tokyo
	asia-northeast2*	Osaka
	asia-northeast3	Seoul
	asia-southeast1	Singapore
	asia-southeast2	Jakarta
	australia-southeast1	Sydney
	australia-southeast2	Melbourne
India
	asia-south1	Mumbai
	asia-south2	Delhi

^* Querétaro, Montréal and Osaka each have three zones housed in oneor two physical data centers. In the rare event of a disaster, data stored inthese regions can be lost.

Backup plan and rule names

Your backup plan names and rule names must meet the following requirements:

• Contain lowercase letters, numeric characters, dashes (-), underscores (_),and periods (.), spaces are not allowed
• Start and end with a number or letter
• Maximum of 63 characters
• Cannot be represented as an IP address in dotted-decimal notation. Forexample,192.0.2.255

What's next

• Create and manage a backup plan for vaulted backups