Protect apps with snapshots and backups

01/26/2021 Contributors Download PDF of this page

Protect your apps by taking snapshots and backups using an automated protection policy or on an ad-hoc basis.

Snapshots and backups

A snapshot is a point-in-time copy of an app that’s stored on the same provisioned volume as the app. They are usually fast. Local snapshots are used to restore the application to an earlier point in time.

A backup is stored on object storage in the cloud. A backup can be slower to take compared to the local snapshots. But they can be accessed across regions in the cloud to enable app migrations. You can also choose a longer retention period for backups.

You can’t be fully protected until you have a recent backup. This is important because backups are stored in an object store away from the persistent volumes. If a failure or accident wipes out the cluster and it’s persistent storage, then you need a backup to recover. A snapshot wouldn’t enable you to recover.

Configure a protection policy

A protection policy protects an app by creating snapshots, backups, or both at a defined schedule. You can choose to create snapshots and backups hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly, and you can specify the number of copies to retain.

Steps

Click Apps and then click the name of an app.
Click Data Protection.
Click Configure Protection Policy.
Define a protection schedule by choosing the number of snapshots and backups to keep hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly.

You can define the hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly schedules concurrently. A schedule won’t turn active until you set a retention level.

The following example sets a schedule to take snapshots daily and weekly, while retaining the last 14 hourly snapshots and the last 26 weekly snapshots. It also takes monthly backups and retains the last 12 copies. Because 0 copies were selected for hourly, no hourly snapshots or backups are taken.
Click Review Information.
Click Set Protection Policy.

Here’s a video that shows each of these steps.

Result

Astra implements the data protection policy by creating and retaining snapshots and backups using the schedule and retention policy that you defined.

Create a snapshot

You can create an on-demand snapshot at any time.

Steps

Click Apps.
Click the drop-down list in the Actions column for the desired app.
Click Snapshot.
Customize the name of the snapshot and then click Review Information.
Review the snapshot summary and click Snapshot App.

Result

Astra creates a snapshot of the apps.

Create a backup

You can also back up an app at any time.

Steps

Click Apps.
Click the drop-down list in the Actions column for the desired app.
Click Backup.
Customize the name of the backup, choose whether to back up the app from an existing snapshot, and then click Review Information.
Review the backup summary and click Backup App.

Result

Astra creates a backup of the app.

View snapshots and backups

You can view the snapshots and backups of an app from the Data Protection tab.

Steps

Click Apps and then click the name of an app.
Click Data Protection.

The snapshots display by default.
Click Backups to see the list of backups.

Delete snapshots

Delete the scheduled or on-demand snapshots that you no longer need.

Steps

Click Apps and then click the name of an app.
Click Data Protection.
Click the drop-down list in the Actions column for the desired snapshot.
Click Delete snapshot.
Type the name of the snapshot to confirm deletion and then click Yes, Delete snapshot.

Result

Astra deletes the snapshot.

Delete backups

Delete the scheduled or on-demand backups that you no longer need.

Click Apps and then click the name of an app.
Click Data Protection.
Click Backups.
Click the drop-down list in the Actions column for the desired backup.
Click Delete backup.
Type the name of the backup to confirm deletion and then click Yes, Delete backup.

Result

Astra deletes the backup.