Create a volume backup

Backups are an essential part of any infrastructure and system. Within the OpenStack Environment you can use the cinder service to create backups of volumes. These can be used to restore a volume in case of data loss or corruption.

This article will guide you through the process of creating a backup of a volume using the OpenStack Dashboard and the OpenStack CLI. If you do not yet have a volume which you want to backup then please refer to the Create a volume article.

Volume backups are stored in the same availability zone as the volume. This means that if the availability zone is down, the backup is also not available. It is recommended to create backups in an other availability zone to prevent data loss in case of an availability zone failure. As of march 2024, the OpenStack Dashboard does not support creating backups in an other availability zone. You can use the OpenStack CLI to create a backup in an other availability zone.

Using the OpenStack Dashboard

Create a volume backup using the OpenStack Dashboard is quite simple. With the following steps you can create a backup of a volume.

Step 1
Log in to the OpenStack Dashboard.

Step 2
Navigate to the VOLUMES section and click on Volumes.

Step 3
Click on the small arrow next to the volume you want to backup and click on Create Backup.

Step 4
Fill in the required fields and click on Create Backup.

Name: A name for the backup
Description: A description for the backup
Container Name: Leave empty
Backup Snapshot: Keep the default value
Incremental Backup: Leave unchecked

Note: The Incremental Backup option is only available if the volume is already backuped once.

Note: The Incremental Backup checkbox can be used if you want to create an incremental backup. This means that only the changes since the last backup are saved. This can save a lot of storage space and time when creating the backup. Please note that restoring an incremental backup can take longer than restoring a full backup.

Note: The Backup Snapshot option can be used if you want to create a backup of the snapshot of the volume. This can be useful if you want to create a backup of the volume at a specific point in time.

Using the OpenStack CLI

Create a backup of a volume using the OpenStack CLI is quite simple. With the following steps you can create a backup of a volume. The benefit of using the CLI is that you can automate the backup process and have more options then using the OpenStack Dashboard.

Step 1
First make sure you have setup the OpenStack CLI and that you are able to execute commands using the openstack command. For more information please refer to the Using the OpenStack CLI article.

Step 2
List all volumes to get the ID of the volume you want to backup.

openstack volume list

Step 3
Create a backup of the volume using the following command. Replace <volume-id> with the ID of the volume you want to backup. Replace <backup-name> with the name of the backup and <backup-description> with the description of the backup.

openstack volume backup create <volume-id> --name <backup-name> --description <backup-description>

Note: If you want to create an incremental backup, you can add --incremental argument to the command above the make the backup.

Note: If you want to create the backup in an other availability zone, you can add --availability-zone <availability-zone> argument to the command above. When adding the availability-zone argument, you may have to add the --os-volume-api-version 3.51 argument.

All done! You have now created a backup of a volume. Altough we hope you never have to use the backup, it is best to have them in case of an emergency. You can use the backup to restore the volume in case of data loss or corruption. For more information please refer to the Restore a volume backup article.