Backup Overview

Backup Scope: Full or Incremental

• You can set the Backup task to create either full or incremental backups during its periodical executions.

  • A full-backup file contains all current database contents and configuration.
    • Creating a full-backup file normally takes longer and requires more storage space than creating an incremental-backup file.
  • An incremental-backup file contains only the difference between present data and data already backed up.
    • An incremental-backup file is normally faster to create and smaller to keep than a full-backup file.
    • An incremental-backup file always updates a previous backup-file.
      If you set the Backup task to create incremental backups but a previous backup file doesn't exist -
      Backup will create a full backup first.
      Subsequent backups will be incremental.

• A typical configuration would be quick incremental-backup runs that "fill the gaps" between full backups.
  For example -

  • A full-backup task set to run every 12 hours,
  • and an incremental-backup task that runs every 30 minutes.

A Typical Backup Folder

A typical backup folder holds a single full-backup file, and a list of incremental-backup files.

• Each incremental backup updates its predecessors, and the whole structure illustrates the backup's chronology.
• Folder contents sample:
  • 2018-12-26-09-00.ravendb-full-backup
  • 2018-12-26-12-00.ravendb-incremental-backup
  • 2018-12-26-15-00.ravendb-incremental-backup
  • 2018-12-26-18-00.ravendb-incremental-backup

Restoration Procedure

In order to restore a database, RavenDB -

• Browses the backup folder.
  On your part, you need only to provide the backup-folder's path.
• Restores the full backup it finds in this folder.
  A backup folder typically contains a single full backup, and the incremental backups that supplement it.
• Restores incremental backups one by one.
  By default, RavenDB will restore all incremental backup files to the last.
  You can also use LastFileNameToRestore to stop restoration when a certain file is reached.

Backup Type: Logical-Backup or Snapshot

There are two backup types: Logical-backup (or simply "Backup") and Snapshot.

• A logical-backup is a compressed JSON dump of database contents, including documents and other data.
• A SnapShot is a binary image of the database and journals at a given point-in-time.
  • Using Snapshots is available only for Enterprise subscribers.

Encryption

Stored data can be Encrypted or Unencrypted.

Compression

• A backup always consists of a single compressed file.
  It is so for all backup formats: full "logical" backup dumps, snapshot images, and the incremental backups that supplement both.
• Data is compressed using gzip.

Backup Name

Backup folders and files are named automatically. Their names are constructed of:

• Current Date and Time
• Backed-up Database Name
• Owner-Node Tag
• Backup Type ("backup" or "snapshot")
• Backup Scope ("full-backup" or "incremental-backup")

For example:

• 2018-12-26-16-17.ravendb-Products-A-backup is the name automatically given to a backup folder.
  • "2018-12-26-16-17" - Backup Date and time
  • "Products" - Backed-up Database name
  • "A" - Executing node's tag
  • "backup" - Backup type (backup/snapshot)
• 2018-12-26-16-17.ravendb-full-backup is the name automatically given to the backup file inside this folder.
  • "full-backup" - For a full backup; an incremental backup's name will state "incremental-backup".

Backup Contents

Backed-up data includes database-level and cluster-level contents.

• Database-level contents is data contained in the database and related to its state, and additional data types and entities.
• Cluster-level data includes additional data, related to the behavior of the cluster.