Multiple storages for backups¶

Version added: 2.6.0

A good practice in a backup policy is to follow the 3-to-1 rule: have 3 copies of data stored on 2 different storages and have 1 copy kept offsite. Instead of transferring data to multiple storages, you can configure those storages and have PBM make backups to them directly, at different schedules.

For example, you can configure backups as follows:

Make full physical backups with point-in-time recovery enabled weekly and store them on AWS S3 bucket,
Make incremental backups daily on another storage.
Make EBS snapshots of the whole database monthly and store it on an external offsite server.

This ability to define multiple storages for backups brings the following benefits:

Saves costs on data transfer in case of cloud storages
Increases effectiveness of following your organization’s backup policy either via your own applications and tools interfaced with PBM or via Percona Everest

Configuration profiles¶

By default, PBM stores backups and point-in-time recovery oplog slices to the remote backup storage which you defined in the configuration file during the initial setup. This is the main backup storage.

To make backups to additional – external backup storages, a concept of a configuration profile is introduced. A configuration profile is a file that stores only the configuration for an external backup storage.

Here’s the example of the configuration profile:

minio.yaml

storage:
  type: s3
  s3:
    endpointUrl: "http://localhost:9000"
    bucket: mybucket
    region: my-region
    credentials:
        access_key_id: myaccesskey
        secret_access_key: mysecretkey

To upload the configuration profile to PBM, use the pbm profile add command and specify the path to the profile.

$ pbm profile add <profile_name> /path/to/profile.yaml

To show the information about the external backup storage, use the pbm profile show command:

$ pbm profile show <profile_name>

See the full list of the configuration profile management commands in the pbm commands reference.

Make a backup to an external storage¶

To make a backup to an external backup storage, pass the profile name with the --profile flag for the pbm backup command. For example, to run a physical backup and store it in the MinIO storage defined via the minio configuration profile, run the following command:

$ pbm backup -t physical --profile=minio --wait

Sample output

{.text .no-copy} Starting backup ‘2024-06-25T11:25:30Z’....Backup ‘2024-06-25T11:25:30Z’ to remote store ‘s3://http://minio:9000/backup’ has started

You can make any type of backups except snapshot-based ones on an external storage.

Note that point-in-time recovery oplog slicing is not stopped automatically for backups made to an external storage. Thus, PBM saves oplog chunks related to such backups on both the main and the external storages.

When you make incremental backups, make sure to keep the whole backup chain on the same storage. To switch the backup storage, you must make a new base backup on it to start the new incremental chain.

Restore from an external storage¶

Before you start, make sure that pbm-agents have the read permissions to backups on the remote storage(s). Also, make all preparations for the restore.

List backups by running the pbm list or pbm status commands.

$ pbm list

The output shows the backup names and timestamps. External backups are marked with an asterisk:

Sample output

Backup snapshots:
  2024-06-25T10:53:57Z <logical> [restore_to_time: 2024-06-25T10:54:02Z]
  2024-06-25T10:54:55Z <logical, *> [restore_to_time: 2024-06-25T10:55:02Z]
  2024-06-25T10:57:49Z <logical, *> [restore_to_time: 2024-06-25T10:57:56Z]

PITR <on>:
  2024-06-25T10:54:03Z - 2024-06-25T10:57:51Z

To make a point-in-time restore, you must explicitly pass the backup name for the pbm restore command:
```
$ pbm-restore --time=<timestamp> --base-snapshot <backup-name>
```
After the restore is complete, do the required post-restore steps depending on the restore type.
Make a fresh backup to serve as the new base for future restores.

Delete backups¶

You can delete backups from an external storage only by name.

Run the pbm delete command and pass the backup name:

$ pbm delete-backup 2024-06-25T10:54:55Z

Implementation specifics¶

You can make backups of any type except snapshot-based ones on the external storage.
To start point-in-time recovery oplog slicing, you must make a backup on the main storage. A backup from an external storage is not considered a valid base backup for oplog slicing.
PBM saves point-in-time recovery oplog ranges only on the main storage. Backups are saved on the storage that you define when starting a backup.
Backup process on the external storage doesn’t stop point-in-time recovery oplog slicing on the main storage. Thus, PBM saves oplog chunks related to such backups on both the main and the external storages
The whole incremental chain must be stored on the same storage. To change the storage for incremental backups, you must start a new backup chain with the incremental base backup on the new storage.
To restore from a backup on external storage, pbm-agents must have read permissions on it.
To make a point-in-time recovery, you must specify the backup name via the --base-snapshot flag. Without it, PBM searches for the base backup on the main storage.
You can delete backups from external storages only by name using the pbm delete-backup <backup-name> command. Bulk deletion of backups older than the specified time is supported only for the main storage.

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Last update: September 13, 2024
Created: September 13, 2024