Management and configuration of a tiered data storage system are described. An agent software application on computing devices in a first tier processes snapshot backups and pushes them to an appliance software application on a server in a second tier. The agent software application may optionally store checkpoint backups in the first tier. The appliance software application processes archive backups and pushes them to cloud storage in a third tier. A cloud application on a management server receives storage policy specifications from customers and promulgates the policies to the agent software application and the appliance software application. The policy specifications include an optional checkpoint specification including a checkpoint time period for backups in the first tier, a snapshot specification including a snapshot time period for backups in the second tier, and an archive specification including an archive time period for backups in the third tier.