How to: Use Multcloud For Cross-Cloud Backups
I’ve written a little bit about the importance of taking (3–2–1 compliant!) backups — whether you’re using to back up your home computer or your web hosting.
Another important component of a comprehensive backup strategy is ensuring that all other data repositories which you maintain in the cloud are themselves backed up somewhere you can manage.
If you back them up to a reliable repository like AWS S3 then you’ve already fulfilled the offsite requirement of 3–2–1. And if you keep a copy of that repository on your local network then you’re all the way there.
Running backups cloud-to-cloud (between servers on the cloud) has a major advantage compared to pushing up local backups from your computer: you benefit from the far superior connection (and specifically the uplink) that a professionally managed data center has.
The actual speed of the transfer between cloud sources depends upon the protocol over which the transfer takes place (as well as a few other factors). But you can virtually remain assured that it will be faster than using your home connection.
MultCloud.com is one of my favorite tools for this purpose.
Connecting Your Cloud
Multcloud’s advantage for backup and data transfer purposes is that it can sync quite a wide variety of clouds — and use different sync methodologies to keep them running as you wish.
The platform supports common “consumer grade” cloud storage tools such as:
- Google Drive
- Mega
- pCloud
- Box
Additionally the tool can connect to:
- ownCloud — a self-hosted file hosting and collaboration suite
You can also connect to:
- AWS S3
- Any FTP server (FTP and FTPS are supported)
And:
- Any WebDAV server
- Any MySQL server
Connecting and Syncing Clouds
Multcloud can be used to run automatic scheduled syncs between, say, Google Drive and pCloud.
Users can also specify which sync methodology they wish to use — or switch the source and target/destination to change the direction of the sync. A two way sync can also be configured.
The syncing options include:
- Simple one way source to target incremental sync
- Mirror sync (extra files in the target are deleted)
- Move sync full source to target sync
The most important feature — for many users — is the scheduling tool. This allows the sync to run automatically on schedule.
The sync can be configured to run:
- Up to three times daily
- Weekly
- Monthly
Creating a Cloud Backup Job With Multcloud
Multcloud can be used to automatically sync a cloud storage volume, like pCloud, with a backup bucket in S3.
After connecting the clouds, users simply choose the source and destination.
Set the job to run weekly:
Select “Add Task and Transfer Now” to initiate the transfer and retain the scheduled job:
By clicking on the job icon in the top right hand corner of the screen users can observe the job as it is running. When it is complete, the user receives a confirmation email:
