File-level backup

Cloud Backup is a file-based backup solution that allows customization of files, folders, schedule, retention and notification. Restore your backed up data to any Cloud Server running Cloud Backup.

File-level vs. image backups

It’s a common misconception that Rackspace automatically backs up Cloud Servers. The good news is that Cloud Servers customers have two options:

• Rackspace Cloud Backup is a file-level alternative to backing up the whole server image.
• Image Backups save the server’s operating system, applications and data.

You should consider using both of these backup techniques (image level and file level) since each method addresses different needs. Just remember that, in general, if you want to maintain a copy of an image for re-provisioning of a Cloud Server in a single step, then use image backups. If you want the flexibility to manage backups at the file level, then use Rackspace Cloud Backup.

Compression and de-duplication

Rackspace Cloud Backup uses block level de-duplication within and across multiple files and may compress the files as well. These features greatly improve backup speeds and reduce total data stored. Cloud Backup does incremental backups so only those parts of a file that have changed since the previous backup are uploaded.