Backup¶
Using the backup feature in Binero cloud, you are able to backup and restore volumes.
The system stores the backups in the object storage of your account in availability zone europe-se-1b using the gp.archive storage policy.
Important
When backing up volumes from availability zone europe-se-1b, note that the backups currently will also end up in the same availability zone (and, in part, on the same storage).
If you have data that is not also stored in zone europe-se-1a, we recommend using a different backup to secure your data for a potential storage outage in zone europe-se-1b.
Data integrity¶
The backup service in Binero cloud backs up volumes.
When backing up a volume the system copies the data bit-by-bit from the source to the destination, it takes time when copying large amounts of data.
The system first takes snapshot of the data if it’s a volume. If you’re writing data to the volume while taking the snapshot or if you are not using a volume and are writing data while a backup is running the data might be corrupt before the data is even copied.
It’s recommend to not write data while taking a backup and if you can power off your instance during a backup that makes it more safe, but that’s not always an option so you need to consider the impact if your data in a backup is corrupt.
For a file server the risk of corrupted files should be minimal and in case of file damage or data loss it’s limited to that file.
When backing up a database the entire database might be reliant on a few files and should one of them become corrupt, the database will not start again. In this scenario, the usual solution is to first run a dump of the database data onto a file on the filesystem. This file would then be safe (as its not written to after the dump) and in case of a restore, you can import the data back into the database from the dump.
Shutting of your instance will make the backup entirely safe from above issues.
Tip
We strongly recommend doing a restore test of your backups. Since restoring to a new volume and creating a new instance that could run parallel to your production workload, this is a good way to ensure data consistency in your backup.
Setting up backup¶
You can use the Binero cloud backup feature in two main ways, see below.
Manual backup¶
A manual backup is useful before doing a migration, upgrade or when retire an old system but want to keep a copy of the data.
More information in our Setting up manual backup article.
Automated backup¶
The platform is able to automatically create backups for you. This can be setup via the platform automation tool, we strongly recommend using our service catalog to enable automated backup.
The platform will not do incremental backups when using the built-in workflow to run backups.
More information in our Setting up automatic backup article.
Note
Before creating a backup, note that you are strongly recommended to also dump any database to disk. If the backup is ran on a schedule, also dump your database on a schedule inside your instance before the system takes the backup.