Profile Applicability:
 • Level 2

Description:

Creating snapshots of EBS volumes ensures that data is backed up and can be restored in the event of data loss, corruption, or system failure. Snapshots are point-in-time backups of EBS volumes that are stored in Amazon S3. They allow for disaster recovery and are essential for maintaining data integrity.

Rationale:

Snapshots allow organizations to back up EBS volumes and restore them when needed. They are critical for data protection, enabling organizations to recover from unplanned disruptions or data corruption. Snapshots are incremental, which means they only store changes made since the last snapshot, optimizing storage usage.

Impact:

Pros:

  • Provides backup and disaster recovery capabilities for EBS volumes

  • Incremental snapshots reduce storage costs by only storing changes

  • Allows for quick restoration of data in the event of an issue

  • Snapshots are stored in Amazon S3, providing high durability

Cons:

  • Snapshots can incur additional storage costs, especially if not managed or deleted after use

  • Creating snapshots of large volumes may take time, potentially impacting performance during the process

  • Snapshots must be managed to ensure they do not accumulate unnecessarily

Default Value:

Snapshots are not created automatically for EBS volumes. They must be manually created or scheduled.

Pre-requisites:

  • IAM permissions to create and manage EBS snapshots

  • EBS volume should be attached to an EC2 instance or available in the account

  • Defined backup and retention strategy for snapshots

Remediation:

Test Plan:

Using AWS Console:

  1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console

  2. Navigate to EC2 > Snapshots

  3. Ensure that snapshots for critical EBS volumes are created regularly

  4. Verify that snapshots are properly tagged for easy identification

  5. Check that snapshots are retained according to backup policies and are deleted after their retention period

Using AWS CLI:

  1. List all snapshots:

     aws ec2 describe-snapshots --owner-ids <account-id>

  2. Describe a specific snapshot:

     aws ec2 describe-snapshots --snapshot-ids <snapshot-id>

  3. Verify snapshot tags:

     aws ec2 describe-tags --filters "Name=resource-id,Values=<snapshot-id>"

Implementation Plan:

Using AWS Console:

  1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console

  2. Navigate to EC2 > Volumes

  3. Select the EBS volume for which you want to create a snapshot

  4. Click Actions > Create Snapshot

  5. Provide a description for the snapshot

  6. Optionally, add tags to the snapshot for easier identification

  7. Click Create Snapshot

  8. Verify that the snapshot creation is successful and appears under Snapshots

Using AWS CLI:

Create a snapshot of an EBS volume:

aws ec2 create-snapshot \
  --volume-id <volume-id> \
  --description "Snapshot for backup" \
  --tag "Key=Name,Value=Backup-Snapshot"

List snapshots after creation to verify:

aws ec2 describe-snapshots --filters Name=volume-id,Values <volume-id>

Backout Plan:

Using AWS Console:

  1. Navigate to EC2 > Snapshots

  2. Select the snapshot to delete

  3. Click Actions > Delete Snapshot

  4. Confirm the deletion of the snapshot

Using AWS CLI:

Delete the snapshot:

aws ec2 delete-snapshot --snapshot-id <snapshot-id>

References: