Create Remote Archive Volume with Google Cloud Storage

You need a remote archive volume to store your backups. During the installation if you did not create the remote archive volume, you can create it from EXAoperation later. Exasol recommends using Google Cloud Storage to store your backups for Exasol on Google Cloud Platform.

This section explains how you can use Google Cloud Storage to create a remote archive volume and store your backup.

Prerequisites

You need the following to configure the remote backup in EXAoperation:

  • All nodes must be able to reach the remote target.
  • If DNS names will be used, ensure the cluster has DNS servers configured.
  • You should have the Google Cloud Storage buckets ready. If you have not created the buckets, see Creating storage buckets.
  • You should have the URL of the bucket in one of the following formats:
    • http://<bucketname>.storage.googleapis.com
    • https://<bucketname>.storage.googleapis.com
  • In the GCS web console page for your bucket, under Settings > Interoperability, create an Access key for your service account and save the generated Secret.
  • In case the nodes are on a private network, you need to assure that Private Google Access is enabled in your subnet to store backups in the storage. For more information, see Configuring Private Google Access.

 

Remote Archive Volume Options

You can use the following volume options (depending on the protocol):

  • cleanvolume: Deletes remote backups on expiry.
  • noverifypeer: Doesn’t check server certificate.
  • nocompression: Writes plain data.
  • forcessl: Uses STARTTLS in FTP connection.
  • webdav: Uses WebDAV for http-URL
  • webhdfs: For WebHDFS URLs
  • s3: For remote archive volumes on Amazon S3.
  • timeout=seconds: Allows higher client/ server response time.

Configure Remote Archive Volume in EXAoperation

Do the following to configure the remote archive volume:

  1. Log in into EXAoperation.
  2. Go to Services > EXAStorage, click Add Remote Volume.
  3. Enter the following details:
    • Archive URL: Use the URL of the Google cloud Storage bucket here.
    • User: Enter the Access key ID you created in Settings > Interoperability.
    • Password: Enter the Secret that you created in Settings > Interoperability.
    • Allowed Users: Select the EXAoperation users that can use the remote archive volume.
    • Read-only Users: Select the EXAoperation users that can read from the remote archive volume.

      Any user that you add as Read-only User, is limited to read-only access even if it's added to the Allowed Users list. If you have only one user that's added into list of allowed user, make sure you don't add the user in the list of Read-only Users.

    • Labels: Add label to the remote archive volume for an easy identification.
    • Options:You can use one of the options mentioned in section Remote Archive Volume Options. For example, cleanvolume option to clean expired backups.
  4. Click Add.

Other Remote Archive Volume Options

Exasol provides the following options to back up your data:

Protocol Archive URL Example
FTP

ftp://ftpserver:12345/optional-directory/

OR

sftp://ftpserver:12345/optional-directory/

SMB smb:////smbserver:12345/optional-directory/
WebHDFS

http://hadoop-server:12345/optional-directory/

OR

https://hadoop-server:12345/optional-directory/

S3

http://bucketname.s3.amazonaws.com/optional-directory/

Or

https://bucketname.s3.amazonaws.com/optional-directory/

To know how to use an S3 bucket for backup, see Create Remote Archive Volume with Amazon S3 .

Azure Blob Storage http://storage_container_name.blob.corewindows.net/container_name

OR

https://storage_container_name.blob.corewindows.net/container_name

To know how to use Azure Blob Storage for backup, see Create Remote Archive Volume with Azure Blob Storage.