Use incremental backups

Incremental backups let you chain together a series of backups. You start with a regular backup. Then, when you want to create a subsequent incremental backup, you specify the parent backup.

Restoring a database instance from an incremental backup is the same as creating a database instance from a regular backup—the Database service handles the complexities of applying the chain of incremental backups.

This example shows you how to use incremental backups with a MySQL database.

Assumptions. Assume that you have created a regular backup for the following database instance:

• Instance name: guest1

• ID of the instance (INSTANCE_ID): 792a6a56-278f-4a01-9997-d997fa126370

• ID of the regular backup artifact (BACKUP_ID): 6dc3a9b7-1f3e-4954-8582-3f2e4942cddd

Create and use incremental backups

1. Create your first incremental backup

   Use the openstack database backup create command and specify:

   • The INSTANCE_ID of the database instance you are doing the incremental backup for (in this example, 792a6a56-278f-4a01-9997-d997fa126370)

   • The name of the incremental backup you are creating: backup1.1

   • The BACKUP_ID of the parent backup. In this case, the parent is the regular backup, with an ID of 6dc3a9b7-1f3e-4954-8582-3f2e4942cddd

   $ openstack database backup create INSTANCE_ID backup1.1  --parent BACKUP_ID
   
   +-------------+--------------------------------------+
   |   Property  |                Value                 |
   +-------------+--------------------------------------+
   |   created   |         2014-03-19T14:09:13          |
   | description |                 None                 |
   |      id     | 1d474981-a006-4f62-b25f-43d7b8a7097e |
   | instance_id | 792a6a56-278f-4a01-9997-d997fa126370 |
   | locationRef |                 None                 |
   |     name    |              backup1.1               |
   |  parent_id  | 6dc3a9b7-1f3e-4954-8582-3f2e4942cddd |
   |     size    |                 None                 |
   |    status   |                 NEW                  |
   |   updated   |         2014-03-19T14:09:13          |
   +-------------+--------------------------------------+
   

   Note that this command returns both the ID of the database instance you are incrementally backing up (instance_id) and a new ID for the new incremental backup artifact you just created (id).

2. Create your second incremental backup

   The name of your second incremental backup is backup1.2. This time, when you specify the parent, pass in the ID of the incremental backup you just created in the previous step (backup1.1). In this example, it is 1d474981-a006-4f62-b25f-43d7b8a7097e.

   $ openstack database backup create INSTANCE_ID  backup1.2  --parent BACKUP_ID
   
   +-------------+--------------------------------------+
   |   Property  |                Value                 |
   +-------------+--------------------------------------+
   |   created   |         2014-03-19T14:09:13          |
   | description |                 None                 |
   |      id     | bb84a240-668e-49b5-861e-6a98b67e7a1f |
   | instance_id | 792a6a56-278f-4a01-9997-d997fa126370 |
   | locationRef |                 None                 |
   |     name    |              backup1.2               |
   |  parent_id  | 1d474981-a006-4f62-b25f-43d7b8a7097e |
   |     size    |                 None                 |
   |    status   |                 NEW                  |
   |   updated   |         2014-03-19T14:09:13          |
   +-------------+--------------------------------------+
   

3. Restore using incremental backups

   Now assume that your guest1 database instance is damaged and you need to restore it from your incremental backups. In this example, you use the openstack database instance create command to create a new database instance called guest2.

   To incorporate your incremental backups, you simply use the –backup` parameter to pass in the BACKUP_ID of your most recent incremental backup. The Database service handles the complexities of applying the chain of all previous incremental backups.

   $ openstack database instance create guest2 10 --size 1 --backup BACKUP_ID
   
   +-------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+
   |      Property     |                       Value                               |
   +-------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+
   |      created      |                  2014-03-19T14:10:56                      |
   |     datastore     |         {u'version': u'mysql-5.5', u'type': u'mysql'}     |
   | datastore_version |                      mysql-5.5                            |
   |       flavor      | {u'id': u'10', u'links':                                  |
   |                   | [{u'href': u'https://10.125.1.135:8779/v1.0/              |
   |                   |  626734041baa4254ae316de52a20b390/flavors/10', u'rel':    |
   |                   |  u'self'}, {u'href': u'https://10.125.1.135:8779/         |
   |                   |  flavors/10', u'rel': u'bookmark'}]}                      |
   |         id        |         a3680953-eea9-4cf2-918b-5b8e49d7e1b3              |
   |        name       |                      guest2                               |
   |       status      |                      BUILD                                |
   |      updated      |                  2014-03-19T14:10:56                      |
   |       volume      |                   {u'size': 1}                            |
   +-------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+