Filestore Disaster Recovery & Backup Governance Reference

This reference covers disaster recovery (DR) standards, backup architecture, SLA thresholds, and remediation commands for Google Cloud Filestore.

Table of Contents

1. Filestore Backup Architecture

A Filestore backup is a point-in-time snapshot of an instance file share that is stored independently from the source Filestore instance cluster:

• Independent Failure Domain: Backups are stored in Google Cloud regional storage facilities. If the source Filestore instance or its datacenter becomes unavailable, backups remain durable and accessible.
• Cross-Region Restoration: Backups can be restored to a new Filestore instance in the same region or in a different region, enabling geographic disaster recovery.
• Incremental Storage: Filestore backups share common storage blocks across successive backups of the same file share, minimizing storage costs.

2. Disaster Recovery Audit Checks & Thresholds

2.1 Unprotected Instances (Zero Backups)

• Condition: An instance has 0 backups in the project.
• Severity: HIGH
• Impact: Accidental volume deletion, ransomware encryption, or physical hardware catastrophe will cause unrecoverable data loss.
• Remediation: Create an immediate baseline backup of the primary file share.

2.2 Stale Backups (Exceeded SLA Threshold)

• Condition: The most recent backup for an instance is older than stale_backup_days (default: 7 days).
• Severity: MEDIUM
• Impact: Violates Recovery Point Objective (RPO) guarantees. Data modified since the last backup cannot be restored.
• Remediation: Trigger an ad-hoc backup and configure automated scheduled backups using Cloud Scheduler and Cloud Run or Cloud Functions.

3. Backup Discovery Across Multi-Runtime Interfaces

gcloud CLI (Project-Wide Discovery)

To discover all backups across all regions in a project, run gcloud filestore backups list without regional restrictions:

CLOUDSDK_METRICS_ENVIRONMENT="gcs-skills gcs-skills/1.0 (skill:google-cloud-filestore-auditing)" \
gcloud filestore backups list --project="{project_id}" --format="json"

(Critical: Do NOT pass --location=- to gcloud filestore backups list; this flag is unsupported and causes command failure).

MCP Tool Discovery

filestore.list_backups({"parent": "projects/{project_id}/locations/-"})

Direct REST API

GET https://file.googleapis.com/v1/projects/{project_id}/locations/-/backups
User-Agent: gcs-skills/1.0 (skill:google-cloud-filestore-auditing)

4. Matching Backups to Instances

Backups must be matched to instances using the full canonical resource URI rather than short names to avoid cross-zone collisions:

• Canonical Instance URI: projects/{project_id}/locations/{location}/instances/{instance_name}
• Source Instance Property in Backup: Each backup resource returns sourceInstance. A backup belongs to an instance if: backup.sourceInstance == instance.name

5. Automated Remediation Commands (Backup Creation)

When generating remediation commands for unprotected instances, determine the correct location flags based on instance tier:

For Zonal Instances (BASIC_HDD, BASIC_SSD, ZONAL)

Zonal instances require --instance-zone:

CLOUDSDK_METRICS_ENVIRONMENT="gcs-skills gcs-skills/1.0 (skill:google-cloud-filestore-auditing)" \
gcloud filestore backups create {instance_name}-backup-$(date +%Y%m%d) \
    --project={project_id} \
    --instance={instance_name} \
    --file-share={file_share_name} \
    --instance-zone={instance_zone} \
    --region={backup_region}

Example:

CLOUDSDK_METRICS_ENVIRONMENT="gcs-skills gcs-skills/1.0 (skill:google-cloud-filestore-auditing)" \
gcloud filestore backups create nfs-prod-backup-20260903 \
    --project=prod-storage \
    --instance=nfs-prod \
    --file-share=vol1 \
    --instance-zone=us-central1-b \
    --region=us-central1

For Regional / Multi-Zone Instances (REGIONAL, ENTERPRISE)

Regional instances require --instance-location:

CLOUDSDK_METRICS_ENVIRONMENT="gcs-skills gcs-skills/1.0 (skill:google-cloud-filestore-auditing)" \
gcloud filestore backups create {instance_name}-backup-$(date +%Y%m%d) \
    --project={project_id} \
    --instance={instance_name} \
    --file-share={file_share_name} \
    --instance-location={instance_region} \
    --region={backup_region}

MCP create_backup Payload

{
  "parent": "projects/{project_id}/locations/{backup_region}",
  "backupId": "{instance_name}-backup-20260903",
  "backup": {
    "sourceInstance": "projects/{project_id}/locations/{instance_location}/instances/{instance_name}",
    "sourceFileShare": "{file_share_name}",
    "description": "Baseline DR backup generated by google-cloud-filestore-auditing"
  }
}

6. Safety & User Confirmation Requirement

MANDATORY GUARDRAIL: The skill must never execute backup creation commands without prior user confirmation. Present the dry-run command list and conclude with an explicit prompt:

"Would you like me to proceed with creating baseline backups for the unprotected instances? Please confirm to execute."