Is AWS Lifecycle Manager the recommended way to back up root EBS drives?

In the AWS backup and recovery guide [1] Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager is listed as a tool to automate creation, retention and deletion of snapshots. However, on page 15, the guide also mentions that root devices should be stopped before the snapshot is taken (to ensure there's no cached data or pending transactions that won't be caught during the snapshot process). Considering this, I am trying to figure out the following:

Does Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager stop the instance before taking the snapshot? If not, is it the recommended approach for backing up root drives? I have a custom Lambda script which pauses the instance before taking the snapshot. Is this the recommended way to back up a root drive?

[1] https://docs.aws.amazon.com/prescriptive-guidance/latest/backup-recovery/backup-recovery.pdf

Solution 1:

There is not option to stop or detach drives if using and EBS snapshot policy in the Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager.

If, instead, an EBS-backed AMI policy is used (an alternative policy in Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager), there is an option to reboot the instance while taking the AMI to ensure data consistency.

I do not have any information on what is the officially recommended way to back up a drive. I believe the EBS-backed AMI policy is an easier alternative than maintaining your own Lambda script.