Amazon EBS Snapshots Archive (Optional)
Archive EBS Volume
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After practicing lab 5.2 Creating EC2 snapshot, you see that: we use the snapshot operation to backup the EBS volume attached to EC2. Depending on the organization’s data policy, important backups will tend to be stored for a long time. So is there any solution to reduce the cost of storing these snapshot?
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For example, as shown below, snapshots have been created since 2021
- Check the Snapshot that was successfully created in step 5.2, you will see that: the Snapshot is being stored in the Standard tier at a cost: $0.05/GB-month. So just move this Snapshot to the Archive tier, the cost is only: $0.0125/GB-month (price applicable in Region Singapore as of October 2023)
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Deregister AMI
- In the AMI interface, select AMI
- Select Action
- Select Deregister AMI
- Select Deregister AMI
- Noted: This action needs to be done before transferring tier to Snapshot, otherwise, you will receive a warning from AWS as noted at the end of the lab.
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Proceed to transfer tier to EBS Snapshot
- In EBS console, choose square icon to select Snapshot
- Select Action
- Select Archive Snapshot
- The window describing the best practice about the Archive action appears, select Archive Snapshot
- Check the archiving process
- Result
- Restore Snapshot from Archive tier
- Select Snapshot
- Select Action
- Select Restore snapshot from archive
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In the Restore type section, you can choose Permanent or Temporary
- Permanent: means you permanently restore this snapshot to the Standard tier
- Temporary: means you only restore this snapshot to the Standard tier for a temporary period of time (from 1 to 180 days). The Snapshot will be automatically re-archived after this period.
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In the lab, select Permanent, select Restore snapshot
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Check the restore process
- Noted: the process may take up to 72 hours to complete
A few notes:
- If you archive snapshot and get the above warning, it means: your snapshot is registered with AMI
- At this point, you need to Deregister AMI to continue
- You cannot archive snapshots created by the AWS Backup service
- Minimum storage time in tier archive is 90 days. If you permanently delete or restore a snapshot before the minimum 90-day storage period, you will be charged storage tier fees for the number of days remaining. For example, if you permanently delete or restore an archived snapshot after 40 days, you will be charged for the remaining 50 days of the minimum retention period.
- The cost of Restore from the Archive tier is $0.03/GB (price applicable in Region Singapore as of October 2023)