Give backups a retention plan — AWS Backup

Your goal

Create a backup vault and save a plan with a clear retention period.

Why this matters

A backup plan needs a destination, schedule, and retention period. You will save those settings and inspect them. A plan without assigned resources is not a completed backup or a tested restore.

Words you will use

A backup is a saved copy. A recovery point is one saved state. Retention is how long that copy is kept. A restore creates usable data from it.

How to proceed

Start a fresh emulator, read each numbered step, and enter the practice settings shown. Run the action, inspect its API receipt, then continue. Finish lab checks the emulator state again before saving your progress.

1. Create a backup vault

Create a named vault in the emulator. A vault organizes recovery points. Creating an empty vault is different from having a successful backup or a tested restore.

2. Save a daily backup plan

Choose how many days to retain backups and save a daily plan targeting the vault. The plan is not assigned to any resources, so it does not start a backup job.

Backup retention days: Choose 1–365 days. No real backup data is created by this configuration lab. Suggested practice value: 30.

3. Inspect the saved plan

Retrieve the plan and compare its vault, schedule, and retention with your setup. A complete recovery plan also needs resource assignments, successful jobs, and restore testing.

Practice, then check your understanding

Perform the actions yourself and inspect the returned state. Errors keep your settings so you can retry. Starting another lab clears the previous live environment. Earned XP is kept, and signed-in achievements sync to your account. Replay does not award duplicate XP.

Read the official AWS documentation for service behavior and production details.