Schedule Automated Amazon EBS Snapshots Using CloudWatch Events

You can run CloudWatch Events rules according to a schedule. In this tutorial, you create an automated snapshot of an existing Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) volume on a schedule. You can choose a fixed rate to create a snapshot every few minutes or use a cron expression to specify that the snapshot is made at a specific time of day.

Important
Creating rules with built-in targets is supported only in the AWS Management Console.

Step 1: Create a Rule

Create a rule that takes snapshots on a schedule. You can use a rate expression or a cron expression to specify the schedule. For more information, see Schedule Expressions for Rules.

To create a rule

  1. Open the CloudWatch console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/.
  2. In the navigation pane, choose EventsCreate rule.
  3. For Event Source, do the following:
    1. Choose Schedule.
    2. Choose Fixed rate of and specify the schedule interval (for example, 5 minutes). Alternatively, choose Cron expression and specify a cron expression (for example, every 15 minutes Monday through Friday, starting at the current time).
  4. For Targets, choose to Add target and then select EC2 Create Snapshot API call.
  5. For Volume ID, choose an EBS volume.
  6. Choose Configure details.
  7. For Rule definition, type a name and description for the rule.
  8. For AWS permissions, choose the option to create a new role. This opens the IAM console in a new tab. The new role grants the built-in target permissions to access resources on your behalf. Choose Allow. The tab with the IAM window closes.
  9. Choose Create rule.

Step 2: Test the Rule

You can verify your rule by viewing your first snapshot after it is taken.

To test your rule

  1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.
  2. In the navigation pane, choose Elastic Block StoreSnapshots.
  3. Verify that the first snapshot appears in the list.
  4. (Optional) When you are finished, you can disable the rule to prevent additional snapshots from being taken.
    1. Open the CloudWatch console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/.
    2. In the navigation pane, choose EventsRules.
    3. Select the rule and then choose ActionsDisable.
    4. When prompted for confirmation, choose Disable.

Note: The credit for this article goes to Chris Dragich (AWS).

mm

Anup Chhetri

IT system administrator

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