# Get started

In order to start scheduling automated & frequent native snapshots of your ECS Instances, you must connect your Alibaba Cloud account.

After connecting the account, Weap.io will automatically import all your ECS Instances and you will be able to choose the ones that should be backed-up, configure the backup frequency and finally the retention policy.

### 1. Open the Weap.io Provider Snapshots page

Open your Weap.io dashboard and click the **`Provider Backups`** button located in the top menu. On the page just opened, click the button **`Connect cloud account`**.

![](/files/-MKFS79za8hO2odyBa8d)

### 2. Generate your Alibaba Cloud Access Key

In order for Weap.io to be able to create snapshots of your Alibaba Cloud ECS Instances, you must create an Access Key. Open the Alibaba Cloud Console in a new tab, hover the mouse over your profile image and click **`AccessKey Management`**. On the opened page, click the button Create **`AccessKey`**. Your Alibaba Cloud Access Key was created.

![](/files/-MKG-fcrKCl6QvbPHNWv)

### 3. Select the Alibaba Cloud provider, choose a name for the account and provide your Access Key details

Go back to Weap.io and in the modal opened at step 1, select the **`Alibaba Cloud`** provider and type an intuitive name that will help you easily recognize the account later. 

Paste the Access Key Id & Access Key Secret generated in the previous step and choose the location of your ECS Instances.

When done, click the  **`Save`** button.

![](/files/-MKG5I3lpsszpEWTuadX)

### 4. Synchronize the account

After clicking the **`Save`** button, the list of your connected accounts will be reloaded and the newly connected account will appear.

The last thing you have to do is clicking the button **`Synchronize account`**. By doing that, Weap.io will import all your Alibaba Cloud ECS Instances. If you don't press the button, Weap.io will automatically run the synchronization after some minutes. 

Once synchronized, all your ECS Instances will be visible and you will be able to configure the backup frequency, retention or even completely pause the backups for some of them. 

![](/files/-MKG7d7QCXss6JeOC5D2)


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