You can set up snapshot lifecycle policies to automate the timing, frequency, and retention of snapshots. Snapshot policies can apply to multiple indices.

The snapshot lifecycle management (SLM) CRUD APIs provide the building blocks for the snapshot policy features that are part of Kibana Management. Snapshot and Restore makes it easy to set up policies, register snapshot repositories, view and manage snapshots, and restore indices.

You can stop and restart SLM to temporarily pause automatic backups while performing upgrades or other maintenance. To disable SLM entirely, set xpack.slm.enabled to false in elasticsearch.yml.