This document provides information about how to change the backup plan that isapplied to your Compute Engine instance. You can change your instance'sbackup plan to align your data protection strategy with your changingoperational requirements.

Backup and DR backup plans let you define advanced backup strategiesto store your Compute Engine instances in secure storage locationscalled backup vaults. Using the backup plan applied to your instance,you can create scheduled or on-demand backups of your instance in abackup vault.

Before you begin

• Enable the Backup and DR Service API where the Compute Engine instances are located.

  Enable the API

• Create a backup vault
• Create a backup plan
• Set up Log Analytics on your bucket to monitorBackup and DR backup jobs.

Required roles

• To get the permissions that you need to edit an instance's properties and change the associatedbackup plan, ask your administrator to grant you the following IAM roles:

  • To edit the instance:Compute Instance Admin (v1) (roles/compute.instanceAdmin.v1) on the project for the Compute Engine instance
  • To configure scheduled backups or run on-demand backups:
    • Backup and DR Backup User (roles/backupdr.backupUser) on the project for the backup vault
    • Viewer (roles/viewer) on the project for the backup vault

  For more information about granting roles, seeManage access to projects, folders, and organizations.

  You might also be able to get the required permissions throughcustom roles or otherpredefined roles.

• If you want to back up a Compute Engine instance to abackup vault that is in a different project than the instance, thenmake sure theBackup and DR Vault Service Agent for the backup vault has beengranted permission to access the instances in that project. (If thebackup vault and instance are in the same project, then thispermission is already granted by default.)

• To ensure that Backup and DR Vault Service Agent has the necessary permissions to back up a Compute Engine instance to abackup vault, ask your administrator to grant Backup and DR Vault Service Agent theBackup and DR Compute Engine Operator (roles/backupdr.computeEngineOperator) IAM role on the project for the Compute Engine instance.Important: You must grant this role to Backup and DR Vault Service Agent,not to your user account. Failure to grant the role to the correct principal might result in permission errors.

Change the backup plan applied to your instance

Your new backup plan must be from the same project and store the backup in thesame backup vault as your existing plan.

You can change your instance's backup plan by modifying the instanceconfiguration on the Google Cloud console, as follows:

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to theVM instances page.

   Go to VM instances

2. Click the name of the instance whose backup plan you want to change.The instance details page appears for the selected instance.

3. ClickeditEdit.TheEdit page appears for your instance.

4. Navigate to theBackup plan section and then clickChange plan.

5. In theSelect a backup plan pane that appears, do the following:

   1. In theBackup plan name column, click the name of the back planthat you want to use.
   2. To confirm your choice of backup plan and return to theEdit page, clickApply.

6. To apply your backup plan and save your new instance configuration,clickSave.

What's next

• Learn how to use your instance's backup plan toschedule or create backups in a backup vault.
• Learn how torestore an instance from a backup vault.