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 and service recovery

A service's backups are automatically deleted 30 days after the service's deletion date.

To recover a service, contact support@aiven.io.

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This operation may incur an additional cost to your project.

Access to backups

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

• PostgreSQL®: pgdump
• MySQL®: mysqldump
• Caching: redis-cli
• Cassandra® cqlsh
• OpenSearch®: elasticdump

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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 type	Backup retention time based on service Plan
	Hobbyist	Startup	Business	Premium
Aiven for Apache Kafka®	No backups	No backups	No backups	No backups
Aiven for PostgreSQL® / MySQL	Single backup only for disaster recovery	2 days with PITR	14 days with PITR	30 days with PITR
Aiven for OpenSearch®	Single backup only for disaster recovery	Hourly backup for 24 hours and Daily backup for 3 days	Hourly backup for 24 hours and Daily backup for 14 days	Hourly backup for 24 hours and Daily backup for 30 days
Aiven for Apache Cassandra®	Plan not available	Single day backup	Single day backup	Single day backup
Aiven for Caching	Single backup only for disaster recovery	Backup every 12 hours up to 1 day	Backup every 12 hours up to 3 days	Backup every 12 hours up to 13 days
Aiven for Apache Flink®	Plan not available	Hourly backup up to 2 hours	Hourly backup up to 2 hours	Plan not available
Aiven for M3	Plan not available	Single day backup	Daily backup up to 6 days	Daily backup up to 13 days
Aiven for M3 Aggregator / Coordinator	Plan not available	Plan not available	No backups	No backups
Aiven for Grafana®	Plan not available	Backup every 1 hour up to 1 day	Plan not available	Plan not available
Aiven for ClickHouse®	Daily backups up to 2 days	Daily backups up to 2 days	Daily backups up to 14 days	Daily 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 Apache Kafka® MirrorMaker 2
• Cloudera's A look inside Kafka MirrorMaker 2
• Configure AWS for an S3 sink connector
• Configuration Backups

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:

• PostgreSQL® backups
• High availability
• Create and use read-only replicas

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:

• OpenSearch backups
• How to restore an OpenSearch® backup

Aiven for Apache Cassandra®

Aiven for Apache Cassandra backups are taken every 24 hours. You can choose when a backup starts within the 24 hours and, for example, move the backup outside peak hours to save resources. To configure the backup_hour and backup_minute settings, go to the Aiven Console > your Aiven for Apache Cassandra service > Backups > Actions > Configure backup settings.

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The point-in-time recovery (PITR) feature is not available. To be notified once the PITR feature is available for Aiven for Apache Cassandra, contact support@aiven.io.

Aiven for Caching

Aiven for Caching automatically backs up data every 12 hours and supports configurable data persistence using Redis Database Backup (RDB).

Persistence settings

You can configure the redis_persistence settings from Actions > the Configure backup settings section on your Backups page in the Aiven Console.

• Enabled (rdb): When you set redis_persistence to rdb, Aiven for Caching performs RDB dumps every 10 minutes whenever a key changes. These dumps provide additional data protection against Caching service incidents, limiting potential data loss to a maximum of 10 minutes. However, full backups are created only according to the backup schedule (every 12 hours) or when the service is shut down.

• Disabled (off): When you set redis_persistence to off, Aiven for Caching stops all Redis RDB dumps and backups. If the service restarts or powers off for any reason, you may lose any data not yet backed up. Additionally, you cannot fork or replicate the service, which can affect potential scaling or disaster recovery plans.

  warning

  If you disable redis_persistence, the system immediately deletes all existing backups, preventing any data recovery from those backups. When you re-enable persistence, it starts a new backup cycle, but it won't restore any previously stored data.

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The Append Only File (AOF) persistence method is not supported for the managed Aiven for Caching 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.