Backup and DR service adds cross-region backups

To maintain business continuity, you need a robust data-backup strategy. While multi-region backups offer the highest availability, many organizations want a more cost-effective way to protect their data against a regional outage, but still adhere to data residency requirements.

Building on our foundation of multi-region backup protection, we are excited to announce the general availability (GA) of cross-region backups for our Backup and DR Service. With this update, your backup destination is no longer tethered to your source: The backup regions can be entirely distinct from the region where the primary workload is located. This decoupling is essential for protecting against localized regional outages while maintaining granular control over where your data lives. 

This capability is now fully available for Compute Engine instances, Disks and Filestore, with support for Cloud SQL and AlloyDB to follow.

Why cross-region backups?

While multi-region backups provide near-zero downtime, they can carry higher infrastructure costs that you don’t always need for every application. Cross-region backups bridge this gap by offering:

• Optimizing costs: Selectively designate recovery regions, offering a granular alternative to standard multi-region deployments while enabling control and maximizing value.

• Simplifying compliance: Navigate complex data residency laws (like GDPR) by choosing exactly which geopolitical boundary your backup should reside in.

• Improving regional resilience: Protect against localized disasters by placing a restorable copy of your data in a completely different geographical region.

Here’s how it works

We designed implementing a cross-region backup strategy to be intuitive and integrated into your existing workflows:

1. Create a backup vault: Set up a backup vault in a region different from your source resource.

2. Configure the backup plan: Create a backup plan in the resource’s region but select the vault located in the secondary region.