How do I use HYCU with Wasabi?
Wasabi has been validated for use with HYCU. HYCU is a leading multi-cloud backup as a service provider. To learn more about the HYCU - Wasabi solution, please refer to our joint solution brief.
To setup Wasabi with your HYCU application, follow the instructions below.
Please Note: The data restoration process is handled by your specific backup software application. As there are many potential variables that will affect your unique environment, it is strongly recommended that you seek the guidance of your backup software's technical support team in the event that you encounter difficulty, or have application-specific inquiries.
Table of Contents
- HYCU version 4.2.1
- An active Wasabi account
1. Launch the HYCU Backup Controller application.
2. To add a source for the protection environment, navigate to "Administration" and select "Sources".
3. In the "Sources" window, click "+ New" in the Hypervisor tab.
Note: In this example, the source is a vCenter Server.
4. In the New Hypervisor window, provide the required details, click "Next" and "Save" in the Summary window.
5. Click "Target" & Click on "+ Add"
6. Provide a Name for the target and click "Next".
7. Select Target type as AWS S3/Compatible from the dropdown menu.
8. Provide the following and click "Save"
- Service Endpoint - https://s3.us-east-2.wasabisys.com
- Bucket Name - hycu-bucket1
- Access Key
- Secret Key
Note: This config example discusses the use of Wasabi's us-east-2 storage region. To use other Wasabi storage regions, please use the appropriate Wasabi service URL as described in this article
Note: HYCU application REQUIRES service endpoint to be prepended with transport definition (https).
Note: For detailed information on the configuration elements, please refer to the section "Setting up an AWS S3/Compatible target" on page 52 of the HYCU user guide.
9. The Targets tab will now display the newly added Wasabi cloud storage.
10. We need to assign the Wasabi target to a policy. Navigate to "Policies" on the left side pane. Select the desired policy and click "Edit".
11. In the Edit Policy window, set the Backup options as needed and assign Wasabi as the Target and click "Save"
12. The next step is assigning the policy to the virtual machines that must be protected. Navigate to "Virtual machines" on the left side pane. Select the required VMs and click "Policies"
13. In the Policies window, select the desired policy (Gold in our example) and click "Assign"
The protected virtual machines will now be backed up to Wasabi per the configured settings in the policy.
You can now use Wasabi’s Object Lock feature with HYCU v 4.5.1 to make your backups immutable. To protect the backups from ransomware events, this implementation utilizes the object lock capabilities offered by Wasabi, which means the retention mode setting and the required retention periods will be set ONLY on Wasabi.
HYCU supports compliance and governance retention modes of object lock. It recommends the use of Compliance mode to ensure that the data cannot be modified by a user (even the administrator) until the retention policy has passed.
Note: For more information on Wasabi Object Lock, please click here
Note: To use Wasabi’s Object feature, HYCU version must be at least 4.5.0-448. If you are running HYCU 4.5.0, you will need to apply a patch to use this feature. Please reach out to support@hycu.com for the patch information.
To make your HYCU backups immutable with Wasabi, please follow the instructions below
14. Please ensure you have your HYCU backup policy created as you will need the details of your policy to calculate the retention period that needs to be configured on the Wasabi bucket.
Launch the HYCU backup application. Navigate to "Policies" on the left side pane. To edit an existing policy, select the desired policy and click "Edit". To add a new policy, click “+ New”.
Configure the backup parameters as desired. To use Wasabi with Object lock, the HYCU policy should only have Backup chain length enabled (disable Backup Threshold) as shown below and click "Save".
Note: We will assign a Backup target in the next steps.
15. Next calculate the retention period that will need to be set on the Wasabi bucket using the formula below.
Wasabi Bucket Retention Time = (HYCU policy Retention in days) + (HYCU policy Back up Chain length in days)
HYCU policy Back up Chain length in days = (HYCU policy Back up Chain length) / (# of backups in a day)
Below are the details of our backup policy (created in Step 14)
- backs up every day
- retention of 1 week
- backup chain length of 7
Calculate retention in days, in our case, it is 7 days (1 week)
Calculate the backup chain length in days = Chain length / # of backups per day = 7 / 1 = 7
Apply the formula - Wasabi Bucket Retention Time = (HYCU policy Retention in days) + (HYCU policy Back up Chain length in days)
In our case, Wasabi Bucket Retention Time = 7 days + 7 days = 14 days.
Note: Please see the appendix for more examples.
16. Log in to the Wasabi console and create an OL-enabled bucket. For more information click here.
17. Select your bucket and click on the gear icon in the top right hand corner.
18. Click on the "Object Locking" tab.
19. Enable Bucket-level Object retention. Select Compliance enabled mode and set the retention period (in our example, retention period is 14 days as calculated in Step 15) and click "Apply".
20. Once you apply the settings, you will be presented with a confirmation box, type "CONFIRM", then hit the "CONFIRM" button to apply the settings.
21. Next we need to create a Target pointing to the Wasabi object lock enabled bucket.
22. Launch the HYCU backup controller application. Navigate to “Targets” and click “+ Add”
Provide a Name and click "Next".
23. Select Target as "AWS S3/Compatible". Provide the following and click "Save"
- Service Endpoint - https://s3.wasabisys.com
- Bucket Name - hycu-worm
- Access Key
- Secret Key
Note: This config example discusses the use of Wasabi's us-east-1 storage region. To use other Wasabi storage regions, please use the appropriate Wasabi service URL as described in this article
Note: HYCU application REQUIRES service endpoint to be prepended with transport definition (https).
24. The Targets tab will now display the newly added Wasabi cloud storage with a lock icon as Bucket versioning & Retention Time is configured for the Bucket.
25. We need to assign the Wasabi target to a policy. Navigate to "Policies" on the left side pane. Select the desired policy and click "Edit".
Scroll down and expand the Targets dropdown menu.
26. Select the Wasabi target configured in Step 22 as the Target and click "Save".
27. The next step is assigning the policy to the virtual machines that must be protected. Navigate to "Virtual machines" on the left side pane. Select the required VMs and click "Policies" (steps 10 and 11) and select the policy configured in Step 14.
All the backups written to the backup target will now be immutable.
This appendix details the Wasabi retention period calculation with a few examples provide by HYCU. For more information, please refer their support document.
Wasabi Bucket Retention Time = (HYCU policy Retention in days) + (HYCU policy Back up Chain length in days)
HYCU policy Back up Chain length in days = (HYCU policy Back up Chain length) / (# of backups in a day)
Example 1:
For a backup policy that
- backs up every day
- retention of 1 week
- backup chain length of 7
Calculate retention in days, in this case, it is 7 days
Calculate the backup chain length in days = Chain length / # of backups per day
= 7 / 1 = 7
Apply the formula - Wasabi Bucket Retention Time = (HYCU policy Retention in days) + (HYCU policy Back up Chain length in days)
In this case, Wasabi Bucket Retention Time = 7 days + 7 days = 14 days
Example 2:
For a backup policy that
- backs up every 4 hours
- retention of 1 week
- backup chain length of 42
Calculate retention in days, in this case, it is 7 days
Calculate the backup chain length in days, as the policy is to back up every 4 hours, the chain length of 42 equates to 7 days. This is because there are 6 backups in a day. Same is obtained using the formula -
HYCU policy Back up Chain length in days = (HYCU policy Back up Chain length) / (# of backups in a day)
# Of backups in a day = 24 hours / 4 hours = 6
So, Chain length in days = 42 / 6 = 7 days
Apply the formula - Wasabi Bucket Retention Time = (HYCU policy Retention in days) + (HYCU policy Back up Chain length in days)
In this case, Wasabi Bucket Retention Time = 7 days + 7 days = 14 days
Example 3:
For a backup policy that
- backs up every week
- retention of 4 weeks
- backup chain length of 4
Calculate retention in days, in this case, it is 4 times 7 days = 28 days
Calculate the backup chain length in days, as the policy is to back up every week, the chain length of 4 equates to 28 days. Same is obtained using the formula –
# Of backups in a day = 1 / 7
So, Chain length in days = (HYCU policy Back up Chain length) / (# of backups in a day)
= 4 / (1/7) = 28 days
Wasabi Bucket Retention Time = (HYCU policy Retention in days) + (HYCU policy Back up Chain length in days) = (4 * 7) + 28 = 28 + 28 = 56 days