AWS EBS Backup and Recovery Guide 2025: Snapshots, DLM, and AWS Backup

What’s New in 2025

Key Updates and Changes

• AWS Backup Integration: Centralized backup management with deletion protection
• Enhanced DLM: Cron expressions, multi-schedule policies (up to 4 per policy)
• Cross-Region Automation: Automated snapshot copying across 3 regions
• Incremental Cross-Region: Optimized data transfer for regional copies
• EventBridge Integration: Real-time snapshot event monitoring

Major Improvements

• Snapshot Locking: Prevent accidental deletion with retention locks
• Fast Snapshot Restore: Pre-warm snapshots for instant recovery
• Archive Tier: 75% cost savings for long-term retention
• Recycle Bin: Recover accidentally deleted snapshots
• Tags-Based Automation: Enhanced tag-based lifecycle management

Understanding what AWS provides for backing up EBS volumes is an important concept for DevOps. In 2025, AWS offers multiple sophisticated options for automating and managing backups.

Data safety with EBS - Backup/Recovery (Snapshots)

Amazon EBS allows you to easily backup data. You do this by taking snapshots. Snapshots are point-in-time backups. Data written to an EBS volume can be periodically used to create a snapshot. Snapshots provide incremental backups of your data. Snapshots just saves the blocks that have changed. Only changed blocks since the last snapshot are saved in the new snapshot.

Even though snapshots are saved incrementally, only the last snapshot is needed in order to restore the volume. You can delete older snapshot, and still use the latest snapshot. In 2025, AWS uses advanced deduplication to minimize storage costs.

Taking Snapshots in 2025

Snapshots are done with:

• AWS Management Console
• Data Lifecycle Manager (DLM) - Automated policies
• AWS Backup - Centralized backup across services
• AWS API/CLI
• EventBridge - Event-driven snapshots
• Systems Manager - Maintenance window snapshots

EBS snapshots are backed by S3 in AWS-controlled storage. You can see these snapshots in your account but they’re managed separately from your S3 buckets.

Snapshots are stored per region. You use snapshots to create new EBS volumes. Snapshots can be copied to other regions automatically using DLM.

AWS Data Lifecycle Manager (DLM) - The 2025 Standard

Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager provides automated backup management:

Key DLM Features

• Multiple Schedules: Up to 4 schedules per policy
• Cron Expressions: Custom backup schedules
• Cross-Region Copy: Automated copying to 3 regions
• Cross-Account Sharing: Share snapshots across accounts
• AMI Lifecycle: Manage EBS-backed AMIs
• Tag-Based Selection: Target volumes by tags

Creating a DLM Policy

# Tag your volumes first
aws ec2 create-tags --resources vol-1234567890abcdef0 \
  --tags Key=Backup,Value=Daily

# Create DLM policy (via console or CloudFormation)
# Example schedule: Daily at 3 AM, retain 7 days

DLM Policy Components

1. Target Tags: Which volumes to backup
2. Schedule: When to create snapshots (cron or rate)
3. Retention: How long to keep snapshots
4. Copy Rules: Cross-region replication
5. Fast Restore: Enable for critical volumes
6. Tags: Applied to created snapshots

AWS Backup - Enterprise Backup Solution

AWS Backup provides advantages over standalone DLM:

AWS Backup Benefits

• Centralized Management: Backup EC2, EBS, RDS, DynamoDB, EFS, FSx
• Deletion Protection: Snapshots can’t be deleted via EC2 API
• Backup Vault Lock: WORM (Write Once Read Many) compliance
• Cross-Service: Consistent policies across AWS services
• Backup Plans: Sophisticated lifecycle management
• Recovery Point Objective (RPO): Define acceptable data loss

AWS Backup vs DLM Comparison

Using snapshots

Snapshots are used to create new EBS volumes. In 2025, consider these options:

• Fast Snapshot Restore (FSR): Pre-warm snapshots for instant use
• Elastic Volumes: Resize without snapshots
• GP3 Volumes: Better baseline performance after restore

Cloudurable provides Cassandra training, Cassandra consulting, Cassandra support and helps setting up Cassandra clusters in AWS.

Tag snapshots to help manage them later. Best practices for tagging:

• Environment: Production/Staging/Dev
• Application: AppName
• Backup-Type: Daily/Weekly/Monthly
• Retention: Days to keep
• Source-Volume: Original volume ID

The AWS console can be used to take snapshots or the command line.

Using command line to create a snapshot of a volume

# Basic snapshot
aws ec2 create-snapshot --volume-id vol-1234567890abcdef0 \
  --description "AppName Daily Backup $(date +%Y-%m-%d)" \
  --tag-specifications 'ResourceType=snapshot,Tags=[{Key=Name,Value=AppName-Daily},{Key=Retention,Value=7}]'

# With encryption
aws ec2 create-snapshot --volume-id vol-1234567890abcdef0 \
  --encrypted --kms-key-id alias/aws/ebs

Snapshot Archive Tier (2025)

Archive snapshots for 75% cost savings:

# Archive a snapshot
aws ec2 modify-snapshot-tier --snapshot-id snap-1234567890abcdef0 \
  --storage-tier archive

# Restore from archive (takes 24-72 hours)
aws ec2 restore-snapshot-tier --snapshot-id snap-1234567890abcdef0

When to Use Archive Tier

• Compliance snapshots (keep for years)
• End-of-project backups
• Quarterly/Annual snapshots
• Disaster recovery copies

Restoring volumes from snapshots

Amazon EBS volumes persist beyond the EC2 instance lifecycle. The restore process in 2025:

1. Standard Restore: Create volume from snapshot
2. Fast Snapshot Restore: Pre-warmed for production
3. Cross-Region Restore: Restore in different region
4. Cross-Account Restore: Shared snapshot restore

# Create volume from snapshot with GP3
aws ec2 create-volume --snapshot-id snap-1234567890abcdef0 \
  --availability-zone us-west-2a \
  --volume-type gp3 \
  --iops 3000 \
  --throughput 125

We hope this information on EBS volumes useful. Check out our Casandra training and Kafka training. We also provide Casandra consulting and Kafka consulting. We specialize in AWS DevOps Automation for Cassandra and Kafka.

Backing up root devices

To create a snapshot from a root device EBS volume, best practices in 2025:

1. Stop the instance (recommended)
2. Use AWS Backup for consistent application state
3. Flush buffers before snapshot

To ensure consistency in Linux:

# Flush file system buffers
sync

# Freeze the filesystem (XFS)
xfs_freeze -f /mount/point

# Create snapshot
aws ec2 create-snapshot --volume-id vol-xxx

# Unfreeze
xfs_freeze -u /mount/point

EBS Recycle Bin (2025)

Protect against accidental deletion:

# Create retention rule
aws rbin create-rule \
  --retention-period Days=7 \
  --resource-type EBS_SNAPSHOT \
  --description "Retain deleted snapshots for 7 days"

# Recover deleted snapshot
aws ec2 restore-snapshot-from-recycle-bin \
  --snapshot-id snap-1234567890abcdef0

Best practices for Backup and Recovery in 2025

1. Use AWS Backup for centralized management
2. Implement DLM for automated EBS snapshots
3. Enable Recycle Bin for accidental deletion protection
4. Tag Everything for lifecycle management
5. Cross-Region Copies for disaster recovery
6. Test Restores quarterly at minimum
7. Monitor with CloudWatch for backup failures
8. Use EventBridge for backup notifications
9. Archive Old Snapshots to reduce costs
10. Document RPO/RTO requirements

Cost Optimization Strategies

1. Lifecycle Policies: Auto-delete old snapshots
2. Archive Tier: 75% savings for long-term storage
3. Incremental Snapshots: Only changed blocks
4. Cross-Region Selectivity: Copy only critical snapshots
5. GP3 Volumes: Better price-performance after restore

Monitoring and Compliance

# List snapshots with specific tags
aws ec2 describe-snapshots --owner-ids self \
  --filters "Name=tag:Backup,Values=Daily" \
  --query 'Snapshots[*].[SnapshotId,StartTime,VolumeSize,State]' \
  --output table

# Check DLM policy execution
aws dlm get-lifecycle-policy --policy-id policy-1234567890abcdef0

Cassandra and Kafka Backup Considerations

For distributed systems like Cassandra and Kafka:

Cassandra

• Coordinate snapshots across all nodes
• Use nodetool snapshot before EBS snapshot
• Consider incremental backups with commitlog archiving
• Test restore procedures with data verification

Kafka

• Pause producers if possible
• Flush logs before snapshot
• Snapshot all brokers simultaneously
• Include ZooKeeper/KRaft metadata

Slide deck that covers backing up Amazon Cassandra nodes in AWS

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