DEV Community

Cover image for 📸 AWS 115: Your Data's Safety Net - Creating an EBS Snapshot
Hritik Raj
Hritik Raj

Posted on

📸 AWS 115: Your Data's Safety Net - Creating an EBS Snapshot

#aws #ebs #devops #100daysofcloud

AWS

💾 EBS Snapshots: The "Digital Time Capsule" for Your Data

Hey Cloud Defenders! 👋

Welcome to Day 15 of the #100DaysOfCloud Challenge: Create EBS Snapshot! We are building on our storage knowledge from KodeKloud Engineer. We’ve created volumes and attached them to servers, but today we’re learning the most important rule of the cloud: Always have a backup.

Our mission: Create a snapshot named datacenter-vol-ss from the existing volume datacenter-vol in the us-east-1 region.

1. Introduction: What is an EBS Snapshot? 💡

An EBS Snapshot is a point-in-time copy of your EBS volume.

  • Incremental Backups: Unlike a full copy, snapshots are incremental. This means only the blocks of data that have changed since your last snapshot are saved, which saves you a lot of money on storage!
  • Durable & Secure: Snapshots are automatically stored in Amazon S3, which is designed for 99.999999999% (11 nines) durability.
  • Why it Matters: 1. Disaster Recovery: If your volume gets deleted or corrupted, you can recreate a perfect copy from your snapshot.
    1. Migration: You can copy a snapshot to a different region to move your data across the world.
    2. Volume Resizing: You can create a snapshot of a small volume and use it to create a brand new, larger volume.

Let's capture this "digital time capsule"! 📸

2. Step-by-Step Guide: Creating the datacenter-vol-ss

We will use the EC2 Dashboard to manually trigger this backup.

Step 2.1: Locate your Volume

  1. Log in to the AWS Console and navigate to the EC2 Dashboard.

  1. Ensure your region is set to US East (N. Virginia) us-east-1.
  2. In the left sidebar, under "Elastic Block Store", click on "Volumes".

  1. Find and select the checkbox for the volume named datacenter-vol.

Step 2.2: Create the Snapshot

  1. With the volume selected, click the "Actions" button and select "Create snapshot".

  1. On the Create snapshot page:

    • Description: Enter datacenter Snapshot.
    • Tags: Click "Add tag".
      • Key: Name
      • Value: datacenter-vol-ss

  2. Click "Create snapshot".

Step 2.3: Verify the Completion

  1. In the left sidebar, click on "Snapshots" (just below Volumes).

  1. Find your snapshot datacenter-vol-ss.
  2. Refresh the page until the Status column changes from "pending" to 🟢 "completed".

Success! Your volume is now safely backed up and stored in S3. 🎉

3. Key Takeaways 📝

  • Point-in-Time: A snapshot captures the exact state of the disk at the moment you click "Create."
  • S3 Storage: Even though you manage them in the EC2 dashboard, snapshots live in S3 for maximum durability.
  • Consistency: For the best backup, it's a good practice to briefly "freeze" or unmount the volume before taking a snapshot to ensure all data is written to disk.

4. Common Mistakes to Avoid 🚫

  1. Deleting Source Volumes: You can delete the source volume and the snapshot will remain safe, but always be 100% sure the snapshot is in the "completed" state first!
  2. Naming Conflicts: Description vs. Name Tag many beginners forget to add the Name tag, making it hard to find the snapshot later among hundreds of others.
  3. Cost Management: While snapshots are incremental, they still cost money. Use Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager (DLM) to automate the deletion of old, unneeded snapshots.

5. Conclusion + Call to Action! 🌟

You've successfully taken a snapshot of your infrastructure! This is a milestone in ensuring business continuity for the Nautilus team. You're not just building; you're protecting!

Are you still crushing the 100 Days of Cloud Challenge? 🛡️

  • 💬 Let’s connect on LinkedIn: How often do you take snapshots of your production volumes? 👉 Hritik Raj
  • ⭐ Support my journey on GitHub: View the full technical logs and code for my 100-day journey. 👉 GitHub – 100 Days of Cloud

Top comments (0)