Backup Policies
Scheduled, retention-managed backups independent of primary storage.
View Service DetailsBackups are full copies of VM data written to a separate backup repository — storage that is independent of the cluster serving your VMs. Unlike snapshots, backups survive primary-storage incidents and accidental VM deletion.
How Backup Works
The first backup of a VM is full; subsequent runs transfer only changed blocks (incremental forever), so nightly backups of large VMs complete quickly. With guest tools installed, the platform quiesces the file system — and applications that support it — for consistent restore points.
Creating a Policy
Define the schedule
Data Protection → Backup Policies → Create. Example: daily at 01:00, plus a weekly run on Sunday.
Set retention
Example: keep 14 daily and 8 weekly restore points. Older points are pruned automatically.
Assign VMs
Attach VMs (or whole resource groups — new VMs in the group inherit the policy automatically).
Restoring
| Restore type | What it does |
|---|---|
| Full VM restore | Recreates the VM from a restore point — as a new VM or overwriting the original |
| Disk restore | Restores a single disk and attaches it to any VM |
| File-level restore | Mounts a restore point and lets you pull individual files without restoring the whole VM |
# Trigger an on-demand backup via API
curl -X POST "https://api.daakyicloud.com/v1/vms/vm-0a3f8b2c/backups" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \
-d '{"description": "pre-migration checkpoint"}'
# List restore points
curl -s "https://api.daakyicloud.com/v1/vms/vm-0a3f8b2c/backups" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN"Policy Guidance
- Every production VM should be in a backup policy — treat an unassigned VM as a finding, not a preference
- Match retention to real recovery needs; long retention is cheap insurance for data you cannot recreate
- Test restores quarterly. A backup you have never restored is a hope, not a plan
Backups protect against yesterday’s mistake. If your tolerance for data loss is measured in seconds rather than hours, add Continuous Data Protection — next article.