Use Aiven for MySQL® incremental backups Limited availability

Streamline your Aiven for MySQL® backups using incremental backups.

The Aiven for MySQL® incremental backups feature is an extension of the base backups feature. It allows you to back up only the changes (increments) made since your last full backup. While full backups provide a complete snapshot of your database at a specific point in time, incremental backups capture the differences that have occurred between these full snapshots. This feature calculates the difference between the last full backup and the current state of your Aiven for MySQL database and stores it. During a restore, the full backup is applied first, followed by each incremental backup in order, reconstructing your database to the desired point in time.

Use Aiven for MySQL® backups for:

• Reduced DDL lock times: For large databases, full backups can cause prolonged DDL (Data Definition Language) locks. Incremental backups significantly reduce this lock duration, especially when there haven't been many changes.
• Efficient storage: Databases with fewer changes will benefit from less storage consumption, as incremental backups only store the differences, leading to more efficient use of your storage.

note

• Restoring from incremental backups might take more time than restoring from a full backup.
• Using incremental backups doesn't allow to completely eliminate DDL locks.

Prerequisites

• Enable Aiven for MySQL® incremental backups as a limited availability feature.
• Access the Aiven Console or the Aiven API.
• Set up a weekly backup schedule before or when enabling incremental backups.

Enable incremental backups

Console

1. Access your Aiven for MySQL service in the Aiven Console.
2. Click Service settings in the sidebar.
3. Scroll to the Advanced configuration section and click Configure.
4. In the Advanced configuration window, click Add configuration option.
5. Use the search bar to:
   1. Find mysql_incremental_backup, and set it to Enable.
   2. Find mysql_incremental_backup.full_backup_week_schedule, and set it to a string of any number of the following comma-separated values: mon, tue, wed, thu, fri, sat, sun.
6. Click Save configuration.

API

Use the ServiceUpdate API to add "mysql_incremental_backup": true to the user_config object:

curl -X PUT \
  https://api.aiven.io/v1/project/YOUR_PROJECT_NAME/service/YOUR_SERVICE_NAME \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_BEARER_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
        "user_config": {
          "mysql_incremental_backup": {
            "enabled": true,
            "full_backup_week_schedule": "mon,wed"
          }
        }
      }'

In "full_backup_week_schedule": "VALID_VALUES", replace the VALID_VALUES placeholder with a string of any number of the following comma-separated values: mon, tue, wed, thu, fri, sat, sun.

Disable incremental backups

Console

1. Access your Aiven for MySQL service in the Aiven Console.
2. Click Service settings in the sidebar.
3. Scroll to the Advanced configuration section and click Configure.
4. In the Advanced configuration window, click Add configuration option.
5. Use the search bar to find mysql_incremental_backup, and set it to Disable.
6. Click Save configuration.

API

Use the ServiceUpdate API to add "mysql_incremental_backup": false to the user_config object:

curl -X PUT \
  https://api.aiven.io/v1/project/YOUR_PROJECT_NAME/service/YOUR_SERVICE_NAME \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_BEARER_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
        "user_config": {
          "mysql_incremental_backup": {
            "enabled": false
          }
        }
      }'

Related pages

Service backup