Registering an external backup repository

Before you can save application instance backups to an external backup repository, you must first register that repository. However, you must first register the repository with ThinkAgile CP. You must be logged in as an infrastructure admin user or a VDC manager user to register an external backup repository.

You can register an Amazon S3 bucket or any Amazon S3-compliant repository (any repository that utilizes the Amazon S3 authentication mechanisms, such as region, access key, secret key, and bucket).

The external repository must exist before it can be registered with ThinkAgile CP. For information about setting up Amazon S3 buckets, see the following topic:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/user-guide/create-bucket.html

Complete the following steps to register an external backup repository:

1. Log in to the ThinkAgile CP Cloud Controller.
2. In the left navigation menu, click to select and expand the virtual datacenter for which you want to add the external repository. Then click Backups to view the Backups page.
   Figure 1. VDC Backups page
   
   

   The Backups shows a summary listing of all external backup repositories and all application instance backups for the VDC.

3. Click Add Repository.
4. On the Getting Started page, click Next.
5. Fill in the details for the external repository.
   Figure 2. VDC Backups page
   
   
   1. The account URL for an Amazon S3 account is displayed by default. If you are using a different external repository, enter the URL for that repository.
   2. Specify the region where the storage bucket is located. If you are using an Amazon S3 account, the region is shown on the Buckets page of the Amazon S3 console.
   3. Specify the access key.
   4. Specify the secret key. If you are using Amazon S3, the access key and the secret key can be created on the Your Security Credentials page of the Amazon S3 console.
   5. Specify the name of an existing bucket.
6. Click Next to display the Create Repository dialog. If you are using Amazon S3, the credentials are validated.
7. Enter the name to be used for the external repository and, optionally, fill in a description. Then click Create.

The backup repository is listed on the Backups page.

Figure 3. Backup repositories listing

After registering the backup repository, you can specify the repository when you set up external backups for an application instance. For more information about enabling and managing external backups, see the following topic:

Manage external backups