Aurora Backups, Backtracking & Restoring | Notion

AWS Aurora Backups, Backtracking, and Restores Summary

Automatic Backups

Retention Period: 1 to 35 days, cannot be disabled.
Point-in-Time Recovery (PITR): Allows recovery within five minutes of the current time.
New Database Cluster: Restoring from an automated backup creates a new database cluster.

Aurora Backtracking

Time Travel: Rewind the database back and forth up to 72 hours.
In-Place Restore: Unlike backups, backtracking does not create a new cluster; it performs an in-place restore.
Support: Currently, only supports Aurora MySQL.

Aurora Database Cloning

Efficiency: Creates a new database cluster using the same DB cluster volume as the original, employing copy-on-write protocol.
Use Case: Ideal for creating test environments with production data quickly and easily.

Key Points

Automated Backups restore data to a new database cluster.
Backtracking allows in-place restores for quick time travel without new cluster creation, limited to Aurora MySQL.
Database Cloning facilitates easy creation of a new database cluster for testing or other purposes, leveraging original data.

Notable Applications

Backtracking: Useful for quickly correcting mistakes or exploring data states without the overhead of managing multiple clusters.
Database Cloning: Perfect for testing, staging environments, or any scenario requiring a quick setup with existing production data.

This summary encapsulates the essentials of managing backups, backtracking, and restores in AWS Aurora, including the operational benefits and limitations.