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Service backups

Most services have automatic time-based backups that are encrypted and securely stored.

Backed-up services: All Aiven services, except for Apache Kafka® and M3 Aggregator/Coordinator.

Backup location: Backups are stored in the object storage of the cloud region where the service is first created, for example, S3 for AWS or GCS for GCP.

Display service backups

  1. In the Aiven Console, open the service of your choice.
  2. Click Backups.
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Backups are encrypted and not available for download.

If you change a service's cloud provider or an availability zone, its backups are not migrated from their original location.

Service power-off/on backup policy

Whenever a service is powered on from a powered-off state, the latest available backup is automatically restored.

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Services powered off for more than 180 consecutive days are automatically deleted. A notification is sent before the deletion.

Toggle the service on and off to prevent automatic deletion.

See Power a service on/off.

Service backup deletion policy

A service's backups are automatically deleted 41 days after the service's deletion date.

Access to backups

Backups are encrypted and not available for download, but you can create your own backups with the appropriate tooling:

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These tools are recommendations and are not intended to create a snapshot of your Aiven service but to provide access to the data.

Backup retention profile per service

Service typeBackup retention time based on service Plan
HobbyistStartupBusinessPremium
Aiven for Apache Kafka®No backupsNo backupsNo backupsNo backups
Aiven for PostgreSQL® / MySQLSingle backup only for disaster recovery2 days with PITR14 days with PITR30 days with PITR
Aiven for OpenSearch®Single backup only for disaster recoveryHourly backup for 24 hours and Daily backup for 3 daysHourly backup for 24 hours and Daily backup for 14 daysHourly backup for 24 hours and Daily backup for 30 days
Aiven for Apache Cassandra®Plan not availableSingle day backupSingle day backupSingle day backup
Aiven for Redis®*Single backup only for disaster recoveryBackup every 12 hours up to 1 dayBackup every 12 hours up to 3 daysBackup every 12 hours up to 13 days
Aiven for Apache Flink®Plan not availableHourly backup up to 2 hoursHourly backup up to 2 hoursPlan not available
Aiven for M3Plan not availableSingle day backupDaily backup up to 6 daysDaily backup up to 13 days
Aiven for M3 Aggregator / CoordinatorPlan not availablePlan not availableNo backupsNo backups
Aiven for Grafana®Plan not availableBackup every 1 hour up to 1 dayPlan not availablePlan not available
Aiven for ClickHouse®Daily backups up to 2 daysDaily backups up to 2 daysDaily backups up to 14 daysDaily backups up to 30 days

There are specific backup strategies for particular service types.

Aiven for Apache Kafka®

Aiven for Apache Kafka is usually used as a transport tool for data rather than a permanent store. Due to the way it stores data, traditional backup strategies are not feasible. As a result, Aiven does not perform backups for managed Apache Kafka services, and data durability is determined by data replication across the cluster.

However, automatic backups for essential Apache Kafka® service configurations are offered through configuration backups, and they come at no extra cost. If the Apache Kafka® service is powered off/on or if any incidents lead to the cluster's failure, the configuration backup facilitates restoring your Apache Kafka® service to its previous state.

To back up data passing through Apache Kafka, we recommend using one of the following tools:

  • MirrorMaker 2 to replicate the data to another cluster, which can be an Aiven service or a Apache Kafka cluster on your own infrastructure.

    With MirrorMaker 2, the backup cluster operates as an independent Apache Kafka service. You can freely choose a zone for your backup service since it operates independently from the primary service.

    note

    MirrorMaker 2 provides tools for mapping between the source and target offset, so you don't need to make this calculation. For more details, see section Offset Mapping in A look inside Kafka MirrorMaker 2.

  • Kafka Connect to backup the cluster, for instance, sinking data from Apache Kafka® to S3 via a dedicated Aiven connector.

For more information, refer to:

Aiven for PostgreSQL®

For Aiven for PostgreSQL, full daily backups are taken, and WAL segments are constantly archived to the cloud object storage. In case of node failure,

  • For a business or premium plan, Aiven can reconstruct the latest state from a replica.
  • For a startup plan, Aiven can reconstruct the latest state from the latest base backup and replay the latest WAL segments on top of that.

You can supplement this with a remote read-only replica service, which you can run in a different cloud region or with another cloud provider and promote to master if needed.

Edit the backup schedule

To shift the backup schedule to a new time:

  1. Open your service.

  2. Click Service settings page.

  3. In Advanced configuration, click Configure, and use the backup_hour and backup_minute.

    If a backup was recently made, it can take another backup cycle before the new backup time takes effect.

For more information, refer to:

Aiven for MySQL®

Aiven for MySQL databases are automatically backed up with full daily backups and binary logs recorded continuously. All backups are encrypted with the open source myhoard software. Myhoard uses Percona XtraBackup internally for taking full (or incremental) snapshots for MySQL.

Edit the backup schedule

To shift the backup schedule to a new time:

  1. Open your service.

  2. Click Service settings page.

  3. In Advanced configuration, click Configure, and use the backup_hour and backup_minute.

    If a backup was recently made, it can take another backup cycle before the new backup time takes effect.

For more information, refer to MySQL Backups.

Aiven for OpenSearch®

Aiven for OpenSearch databases are automatically backed up, encrypted, and stored securely in the object storage. The backups are taken every hour, and the retention period varies based on the service plan.

For more information, see:

Aiven for Apache Cassandra®

Aiven for Apache Cassandra backups are taken every 24 hours. The point-in-time recovery (PITR) feature is currently not available.

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To be notified once the PITR feature is available for Cassandra, contact the Aiven support.

Aiven for Redis™*

Aiven for Redis backups are taken every 12 hours.

For persistence, Aiven supports Redis Database Backup (RDB).

You can control the persistence feature using redis_persistence under Advanced configuration in Aiven Console (the service's Service settings page):

  • When redis_persistence is set to rdb, Redis does RDB dumps every 10 minutes if any key is changed. Also, RDB dumps are done according to the backup schedule for backup purposes.
  • When redis_persistence is off, no RDB dumps or backups are done, so data can be lost at any moment if the service is restarted for any reason or if the service is powered off. This also means the service can't be forked.
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AOF persistence is currently not supported by Aiven for the managed Redis service.

Aiven for ClickHouse®

Aiven for ClickHouse® provides automatic daily backups. The Astacus backup manager for distributed databases runs on all nodes to coordinate backups of cluster databases.

Each file to be backed up is encrypted, compressed, and uploaded to an object storage (Amazon S3 or Google Cloud Storage) in the same region.

Aiven for ClickHouse backups contain database lists, table schemas, table content, and access entities (such as users or roles). They are backed up incrementally: files already present in the object storage are not re-uploaded and only changed parts are backed up.

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Aiven for ClickHouse doesn't support so-called streaming backups: when a service is powered off, all data written after the last backup gets lost.

For more information about limitations on Aiven for ClickHouse backups, see Aiven for ClickHouse limitations.

For more information on Aiven for ClickHouse backups, see Backup and restore.