Backup an SFTP server to cloud storage (SharePoint, Google Drive, Box, etc.)
A lot of platforms still strictly support FTP/SFTP as a means to interact and retrieve data from. Due to this there is a driver to regularly backup the data to cloud providers such as S3, Google Drive, SharePoint, etc. This not only provides a peace of mind, but also can make the data extremely accessible through native desktop sync agents and web access.
Couchdrop itself has a cloud SFTP solution that provides you the ability to turn your Google Drive, SharePoint or Azure Blob storage into a fully functioning SFTP server with additional features such as file automation and workflows, or a secure web upload portal. However, part of the solution also provides the ability to regularly pull data or export data from an SFTP server and upload it to a cloud storage platform and apply timestamps to file names, etc.
This guide will run you through backing up an SFTP server to a Google Workspace Shared Drive as an example.
1. Create a Couchdrop account (free 14-day trial, no credit card required)
2. Mount SFTP server
Add a new storage provider under your storage management dashboard, this will be the SFTP server you back up, remember what you mount the provider as.
3. Mount your cloud provider
Under the same management dashboard add your destination cloud provider. This is where your SFTP backups/exports will be transferred to, in this case we are configuring a Google Shared Drive. Once again, remember what you mount the provider as.
4. Configure scheduled backup/export task
In this case we are backing up all files under the /ftp mount (you can also specify sub-folders) that will be exported into the Google Shared Drive folder ‘upload-test’ that we configured before. This backup will occur daily at 12:10am UTC and will only backup files older than 24 hours (86500 seconds).
These files that are exported will retain their existing name (variable {EXISTING_NAME}) and add a timestamp (variable {TIMESTAMP}) to the start of the filename.
5. Audit logs
Couchdrop provides a comprehensive audit log on all events from login events through to its file automation events. You can check here for errors or to ensure your backup is operating as you would expect.
For more guides on Couchdrop’s SFTP and cloud file transfer server and or its automation functionality, head to community.couchdrop.io or jump to Couchdrop’s website.
