CWDB Backup
Backup Overview
The backups for the CWDB are some of the most complex we do on campus. The effect is to allow us to both restore from nothing while losing as few database transactions as possible, and to be able to use PITR (point-in-time recovery) to recover from smaller issues than a complete loss. This is accomplished in three ways:
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WAL Archiving ships the PostgreSQL write-ahead logs to the archive server where they can be “played back” in the future to a certain point-in-time.
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Binary Backups use
rsyncto take complete backups of the entire databasedatadirectory which allows us to grab not just the data (most important) but also the configuration files for PostgreSQL. -
Peridocally, snapshots of both the binary backup and the wal archives will be committed to tape (or some other off-campus backup solution) for ultimate data recovery options. This is not yet automated.
That is the 10,000 foot view of what is going on with CWDB backups.