Snapshots and backups solve different failure modes
A snapshot protects against a mistake. A backup protects against a disaster.
Snapshots live on the same platform as the data, so they are fast, cheap and gone when that platform is compromised or fails. Backups are separate, slower and survive. Both are useful and treating snapshots as a backup strategy is a common and expensive misunderstanding, usually discovered at the worst moment.
More on Backups and recovery
- Offline copies break attacker reachabilityReach ends at the last plug
- Immutable backups trade flexibility for protectionSet in concrete
- RPO and RTO answer different questionsTwo different clocks
- Restoring data can restore malware tooThe newest jar is the spoiled one
- Backup credentials deserve separate protectionNot on the same switch
- Recovery order follows dependenciesBottom crate first