Backup Overview
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Maintaining a proper backup routine ensures that you'd be able to restore your data to its state in chosen points of time.
Use this overview as an introduction to backing up and restoring your databases. -
The two principal reasons for backing up your database are -
- Securing data in case catastrophe strikes.
- Freezing data in chosen points-in-time to retain access to it in various stages of its existence/development.
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RavenDB's Backup is an Ongoing task.
- Routinely backing up your data is a fundamental aspect of your database maintenance.
Backup is therefore provided not as a one-time operation, but as an ongoing task that runs in the background.
It is configured once and then executed periodically according to the defined schedule.
- Routinely backing up your data is a fundamental aspect of your database maintenance.
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In this page:
Backup Type
There are two backup types: Logical-backup (or simply "Backup") and Snapshot.
- Logical Backup
A logical backup is a compressed JSON dump of database contents, including documents and additional data. - SnapShot
A snapshot is a binary image of the database and journals at a given point-in-time.
Snapshots are only available for Enterprise subscribers.
Backup Contents
Backed-up data includes both database-level and cluster-level contents, as detailed below.
Database-level data |
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Documents |
Attachments |
Revisions |
Counters |
Tombstones |
Conflicts |
Subscriptions |
Cluster-level data |
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Database Record |
Compare-exchange values |
Identities |
Indexes (Logical-Backups: Index definitions only) |
Ongoing Tasks configuration (4.0 Snapshots only, 4.2 Logical-backups & Snapshots) |
Backup Scope: Full or Incremental
You can set the Backup task to create either full or incremental backups during its periodical executions.
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Full Backup
A full backup contains all current database contents and configuration.- The creation of a full-backup file normally takes longer and requires more storage space than the creation of an incremental-backup file.
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Incremental Backup
An incremental backup contains only the difference between the current database data and the last backed-up data.- An incremental-backup file is normally faster to create and smaller than a full-backup file.
- When an incremental-backup task is executed, it checks for the existence of a previous backup file.
If such a file doesn't exist, the first backup created will be a full backup.
Subsequent backups will be incremental.
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A Typical Configuration
A typical configuration would include 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.
- For example -
Backup Name and Folder Structure
Naming
Backup folders and files are named automatically.
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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:
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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)
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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".
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Folder Structure
A typical backup folder holds a single full-backup file and a list of incremental-backup files that supplement it.
Each incremental backup file contains only the delta from its predecessor backup file.
- For example -
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
Encryption
Stored backup 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.
Restoration Procedure
In order to restore a database -
- Provide RavenDB with the backup folder's path.
- RavenDB will browse this folder and restore the full-backup found in it.
- RavenDB will then restore the incremental-backups one by one, up to and including the last one.
You can set
LastFileNameToRestore
to stop restoration at a specific backup-file.