The Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Block Volume service provides you with the capability to group together many volumes in a volume group. A volume group can include both types of volumes, boot volumes, which are the system disks for your compute instances, and block volumes for your data storage. You can use volume groups to create volume group backups and clones that are point-in-time and crash-consistent.
To use Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, you must be granted security access in a policy by an administrator. This access is required whether you're using the Console or the REST API with an SDK, CLI, or other tool. If you get a message that you don't have permission or are unauthorized, verify with your administrator what type of access you have and which compartment to work in.
When users create a backup from a volume or restore a volume from a backup, the volume and backup don't have to be in the same
compartment . However, users must have access to both compartments.
Volume groups simplify the process to create time-consistent backups of running enterprise applications that span several storage volumes across several instances. You can then restore an entire group of volumes from a volume group backup.
Similarly, you can also clone an entire volume group in a time-consistent and crash-consistent manner. A deep disk-to-disk and fully isolated clone of a volume group, with all the volumes associated in it, becomes available for use within a matter of seconds. This speeds up the process of creating new environments for development, quality assurance, user acceptance testing, and troubleshooting.
This capability is available using the Console, CLI, SDKs, or REST APIs.
Volume groups and volume group backups are high-level constructs that allow you to group together several volumes. When working with volume groups and volume group backups, keep the following in mind:
You can only add a volume to a volume group when the volume status is available.
You can add up to 32 volumes in a volume group, up to a maximum size limit of 128 TB. For example, if you wanted to add 32 volumes of equal size to a volume group, the maximum size for each volume would be 4 TB. Or you could add volumes that vary in size, however the overall combined size of all the block and boot volumes in the volume group must be 128 TB or less. Ensure you account for the size of any boot volumes in your volume group when considering volume group size limits.
Each volume can only be in one volume group.
When you clone a volume group, a new group with new volumes is created. For example, if you clone a volume group containing three volumes, then at completion of the operation, you have two separate volume groups and six different volumes with nothing shared between the volume groups.
When you update a volume group using the CLI, SDKs, or REST APIs, you need to specify all the volumes to include in the volume group each time you use the update operation. If you don't include a volume ID in the update call, that volume is removed from the volume group.
When you delete a volume group, the individual volumes in the group aren't deleted, only the volume group is deleted.
When you delete a volume that's part of a volume group, you must first remove it from the volume group before you can delete it.
When you delete a volume group backup, all the volume backups in the volume group backup are deleted.
Volume Group Replication 🔗
The Block Volume service provides you with the
capability to perform ongoing automatic asynchronous replication of volume groups to
other regions. This feature supports the following scenarios without requiring volume
group backups:
Disaster recovery
Migration
Business expansion
For more information, see Replicating a Volume. For specific details
about volume groups, including step-by-step procedures using the Console and CLI, see
Volume Group Replication.
Volume Group Backups 🔗
A volume group backup provides coordinated point-in-time-consistent backups of all the
volumes in a volume group automatically. You can perform most of the same backup
operations and tasks with volume groups that you can perform with individual block
volumes and boot volumes. You can restore a volume group backup to a volume group, or
you can restore individual volumes in the volume group from volume backups. With volume
group backups, you can manage the backup settings for several volumes in one place,
consistently. This simplifies the process to create time-consistent backups of running
enterprise applications that span multiple storage volumes across multiple instances.
Volume group backups include a Source Region field. This specifies the region
for the volume group that the backup was created from. For volume group backups
copied from another region, this field will show the region the volume group backup
was copied from.
Manual Volume Group Backups 🔗
Manual backups are on-demand one-off backups that you can launch immediately for volume groups by
following the steps outlined in the procedures in this section. For general information
about the manual backups feature for the Block Volume
service, see Manual Backups.
Open the navigation menu and click Storage. Under Block Storage, click Volume Group Backups.
In the Volume Group Backups list, click the volume group backup you want to restore.
Click Create Volume Group.
Fill in the required volume information:
Name: A user-friendly name or description. Avoid entering confidential information.
Compartment: The compartment for the volume group.
Availability Domain: The availability domain for the volume group.
Cluster Placement Group: (Optional) Select the
cluster placement group in which to restore the volume group to.
Note
The Cluster Placement
Group control only appears in the Console if Cluster Placement Groups are
enabled for the tenancy, and you've created and activated a cluster
placement group with the capability added for volume resources, see
Cluster Placement Groups for Block Volume.
For more information about copying volume backups and volume group backups to new regions, see
Copying a Volume Backup Between Regions. Before you can copy a
volume group backup to a new region, ensure that you have configured the requred
permissions, see Required IAM Policy.
Open the navigation menu and click Storage. Under Block Storage, click Volume Group Backups.
In the Volume Group Backups list, click the volume group backup you want to
copy to a new region.
Click Copy to Another Region.
Enter a name for the backup and choose the region to copy the backup to. Avoid entering confidential information.
In the Encryption section select whether you want the volume group backup to
use the Oracle-provided encryption key or your own Vault encryption key. If you
select the option to use your own key, paste the OCID for encryption key from the
destination region.
Click Copy Block Volume Backup.
Confirm that the source and destination region details are correct in the
confirmation dialog and then click OK.
These are automated scheduled backups as defined by the backup policy assigned to the volume
group. Policy-based backups for volume groups are the same as policy-based backups for
block volumes, the main difference is that the backup policy is applied to all the
volumes in the volume group instead of a single volume. For general information about
policy-based backups, see Policy-Based Backups. The
process to create and configure user defined backup policies are the same for volume
groups as they're for volumes, see Creating and Configuring User Defined Backup Policies for these procedures.
Note
Vault encryption keys for volumes aren't copied to the destination region
for scheduled volume and volume group backups enabled for cross region copy. Instead,
you can specify a Vault encryption key for the backup
copied to the destination region when you assign the backup policy. When you assign the
backup policy, if it's enabled for cross region backup copies, select Encrypt using
customer-managed keys for Cross region backup copy
encryption to encrypt the volume or volume group backup in the
destination region. If you select this option, you must specify the OCID for a valid
encryption key in the destination region, see Requirements for Customer-Managed Encryption Keys for Cross-Region Operations for more information.
Note
Oracle defined backup policies aren't supported for scheduled volume group
backups.
Managing Backup Policy Assignments to Volume Groups 🔗
The backup policy assigned to a volume group defines the frequency and schedule for volume group
backups. This section covers how to perform tasks related to managing the backup policy
assignments for your volume groups using the Console,
command line interface (CLI), and REST APIs.
If a volume group has an assigned backup policy, you must remove any backup policy
assignments from volumes before you can add them to the volume group.
Before you can assign a backup policy to an existing volume group containing one or more
volumes with assigned backup policies, you must remove those policy assignments from the
invidual volumes before you can assign the policy to the volume group.
Open the navigation menu and click Storage. Under Block Storage, click Volume Groups.
Click the volume group for which you want to assign a backup policy to.
On the Volume Group Details page click Edit .
In the BACKUP POLICIES section, select the compartment containing
the backup policies.
Select the appropriate backup policy for your requirements.
Optionally, if you select a backup policy enabled for cross region backup copies you
can encrypt the backup copy in the destination region with your own Vault encryption key by selecting Encrypt using
customer-managed keys for Cross region backup copy
encryption. If you select this option, you must specify the OCID for
a valid encryption key in the destination region, see Requirements for Customer-Managed Encryption Keys for Cross-Region Operations.
Open the navigation menu and click Storage. Under Block Storage, click Volume Groups.
Click the volume group for which you want to change the backup policy for.
On the Volume Group Details page click Edit.
In the BACKUP POLICIES section, select the compartment containing
the backup policy.
Select the backup policy you want to switch to.
Optionally, if you select a backup policy enabled for cross region backup copies you
can encrypt the backup copy in the destination region with your own Vault encryption key by selecting Encrypt using
customer-managed keys for Cross region backup copy
encryption. If you select this option, you must specify the OCID for
a valid encryption key in the destination region, for more information, see Requirements for Customer-Managed Encryption Keys for Cross-Region Operations.