Exclude EBS Volumes from EC2 Instance BackupCopy link

Cohesity supports excluding EBS volumes from EC2 instance backup. The following are important points to note:

  • By default, all volumes are included as part of the EC2 instance backup.

  • You cannot exclude the root volume.

  • If you exclude a volume from the EC2 instance backup and if any system information is stored on the excluded volume, recovering the EC2 instance fails.

    For example, in the /etc/fstab file, if you do not specify the nofail option for the excluded volume, recovering the Linux instance fails.

  • You cannot exclude EBS volumes from EC2 instance backup if the Protection Group type is Cohesity Protection Service.

You can exclude EBS volumes from EC2 instance backup using the following two methods:

  • Manual volume exclusion

  • Volume exclusion using rules

Manual Volume Exclusion

To exclude EBS volumes manually while creating/editing the Protection Group, perform the following steps:

  1. Follow steps 1-4 in Protect AWS EC2 Instances.

  2. After you select the EC2 instance, the All Volumes option is displayed:


    To edit the volume selection after creating the Protection Group, hover over the EC2 instance, click the action icon () next to the Protection Group, and select Edit.

  3. Click All Volumes.

    The volumes that are included as a part of the backup are displayed:

  4. Select the volume to be excluded by unchecking the corresponding check box.

  5. Click Save.

    The volumes excluded are displayed next to the corresponding EC2 instance:

Volume Exclusion Using Rules

To exclude EBS volumes after the Protection Group is created, complete the following steps:

  1. Follow steps 1-10 in Protect AWS EC2 Instances.

  2. In the Additional Settings section, set the rules using queries in the Volume Exclusion Settings field. EC2 disks can be excluded based on disk tags using simple query rules. For example, the query, (type = log AND environment IN (qa, dev)) OR exclude = yes, excludes all volumes from backup for which the volume tags meet the above condition.

  3. Click Protect.

To determine whether EBS volumes have been excluded from the backup, complete the following steps:

  1. In the Cohesity Dashboard, select Data Protection > Protection.

  2. On the Protection page, click on the protection job.

  3. On the Runs tab, click on the backup job that is complete.

  4. On the Run Details page, click on the VM name. The Backup Task Activity pop-up window lists the details of all the tasks.

    The details of the excluded volume are displayed: