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Taking a snapshot of an instance

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Find out how to take a snapshot of a Public Cloud instance in the OVHcloud Console or via OpenStack

Objective

You can create a single snapshot of an instance or configure a schedule in order to automate your instance snapshots. Snapshots can be used to restore your instance to a previous state or to create a new, identical instance.

This guide explains how to create manual and automatic snapshots of a Public Cloud instance.

Requirements

OVHcloud Console Access

  • Direct link:
  • Navigation path: Public Cloud > Select your project > Compute > Instances

Instructions

Creating a snapshot of an instance

Warning

This option is only available through a Cold Snapshot for Metal instances. During this process, the Metal instance will be switched to rescue-mode, and once the snapshot is performed, the instance will reboot back to normal mode.

Info

Two types of snapshot are available:

  • Local: A local snapshot is stored in the same region as your instance.
  • Remote: A remote snapshot automatically creates a copy of the local snapshot in a different region of your choice.

Each snapshot is billed separately — the remote snapshot will be charged based on the storage pricing of the selected remote region.

Note: Local Zones are not eligible for remote snapshots.

OVHcloud Console
OVHcloud API
OpenStack CLI
Horizon

In the left-hand menu of your Public Cloud project, click Instances under Compute.

Click on the ... button to the right of the instance and select Create a snapshot. The snapshot creation page opens with the instance preselected in the Select an instance section.

Local snapshot

In the Name your snapshot section, enter a name for the snapshot. Review the pricing information and click Create.

Remote snapshot

In the Name your snapshot section, enter a name for the snapshot. Review the pricing information. Enable Add a remote snapshot (Option), enter a name in the Remote snapshot name field, select a region and click Create.

The instance is suspended for a few seconds while the snapshot is taken. It is not possible to monitor the snapshot progress in real time. However, in the Instance snapshots page (Instance Snapshot under Compute in the left-hand menu), the status of the snapshot is displayed during the process.

Once the snapshot is complete, it will be available on the Instance snapshots page and in the Snapshots tab of the instance.

Creating an automatic snapshot of an instance

Info

If you want to automate this functionality directly via OpenStack, you can create a Mistral workflow associated with a cron trigger.

In the left-hand menu of your Public Cloud project, click Instances under Compute. Click on the ... button to the right of the instance and select Create an automatic snapshot.

The Create a schedule page opens. You can configure the following settings:

The workflow

The schedule creates an automatic snapshot of the instance and its primary volume. There is no workflow type to choose.

The resource

In the Select a target resource section, you can select the instance to snapshot.

The name

In the Name your schedule section, enter a name for the automatic snapshot schedule. Take note of the pricing information in the summary on the right, then create the schedule with Create.

The schedule

In the Define scheduling section, you can set up a custom schedule (Custom, in UNIX cron format, UTC) or choose one of the default frequencies:

  • Rotation 7: daily snapshot with retention of the last 7 snapshots
  • Rotation 14: daily snapshot with retention of the last 14 snapshots
Adding a remote snapshot

Enable Add a remote snapshot, select a location, review the pricing information, and click the Create button.

Managing snapshots and schedules

Schedules are listed and deleted on the Workflow management page: click Workflow under Compute in the left-hand menu.

Your instance snapshots are managed on the Instance snapshots page: click Instance Snapshot under Compute in the left-hand menu.

Warning

The instance snapshot option must be deleted separately if you no longer wish to be billed for it. Deleting an instance does not delete the options attached to it.

Warning

Note that you cannot delete an instance snapshot if an instance that has been spawned from this snapshot is running at the time of the delete action.

Find out how to use snapshots to clone or restore instances in this guide.

Go further

Using instance snapshots to create or restore an instance

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