Nearly nine months after launching Cyber Vault for Cohesity, 11:11 Systems continues to advance a cost- and performance-optimized solution for moving a copy of Cohesity backups offsite into immutable AWS S3 object storage. With the recent release of CohesityOS 7.4, the solution has taken its next step. 11:11 Systems is now a named External Target repository type, making it even easier to implement the best practices our data protection experts have built into the Cyber Vault solution.
Cyber Vault for Cohesity marries the 11:11 optimized version of AWS’ S3 Standard Infrequent Access storage accounts to the Cohesity Cloud Archive v2 (aka Incremental Forever) to enable seamless offloading and secondary copy in a manner that delivers a 90% reduction in storage consumption compared to the first (periodic full) version of the capability, while remaining free of egress charges, API or other AWS fees. Additionally, as a service provided by 11:11 Systems, you can take advantage of volume and term discounts, making it a cost-effective solution for your long-term needs.
In this blog, I’ll walk you through the three steps to seamlessly integrate 11:11 Cyber Vault into your Cohesity data protection strategy, while also providing a broader overview of the Cyber Vault solution.
I have this account info, what do I do with It?
Once you’ve integrated 11:11 for Cyber Vault with Cohesity services, our dedicated Service Delivery team will get in touch to evaluate and optimize your external target requirements.
- Do you just need 1 AWS account with a single bucket?
- Do you need 1 account with multiple buckets to support different policies?
- Are you wanting to protect multiple clusters or locations?
- Are you needing multiple AWS accounts, each with their own buckets?
Once we’ve worked with you to clarify those details, we’ll provide you with the four key pieces of information needed to integrate an external target into your Cohesity infrastructure:
- Amazon Account ID
- Service URL
- Access Key
- Secret Key
With those details on hand, log in to your Cohesity cluster and navigate to Infrastructure > External Targets. Although the 11:11 target type uses the same storage as an AWS target, we have partnered with Cohesity to streamline and optimize the integration with our service. Instead of navigating countless configuration options or running a CloudFormation template midway through setup, you simply need to provide the four details above and give your target a name. As shown in the screenshot, the Incremental Forever option appears “grayed out”, as it is currently the only method in use. Once done filling in and choosing object lock or not (yes, you do want object lock) simply hit Save at the bottom.
Now that you have an external target set up, the next step is to create a protection policy. I always recommend following the 3-2-1 backup rule — keeping one copy of your data locally, a second in an offsite location, with all copies encrypted and immutable. Your external target serves as that offsite copy, and both locations can be defined within the same policy. Here’s an example:
Once your policy has been created, the last step is to set up a Protection Job. Simply select the items you want to protect and apply the policy to it.
What is 11:11 CyberVault?
So that’s how that works for Cyber Vault for Cohesity, but did you know that 11:11 Cyber Vault is a more loosely coupled set of products designed to work with multiple vendors? Our goal with this portfolio was to allow us to set a baseline of what we consider best practice for protection, performance and cost, while still leaving room for vendor-specific optimizations. 11:11 Cyber Vault is available today in Cohesity and Veeam flavors, with a Zerto version coming soon based on their Extended Journal Copy feature.
Conclusion
In summary, while Cohesity offers a robust suite of data protection products, 11:11 CyberVault stands out as a more flexible and adaptable solution, compatible with multiple vendors. This flexibility establishes a foundation of best practices, while still leaving room for vendor-specific optimizations. Currently available in Cohesity and Veeam versions, with a Zerto version on the horizon, 11:11 CyberVault is designed to deliver the best possible protection, performance, and value for your data.
11:11 Cyber Vault is a versatile solution that seamlessly integrates optimized AWS S3 services with leading backup and replication software. Initially launched with Veeam and now expanding to Cohesity, 11:11 Cyber Vault has been incorporated as a named repository type directly within both platforms — delivering a more streamlined and efficient experience than ever before. If you’d like to learn more about 11:11 Cyber Vault, you can book a meeting with us, or check out the resources below.
