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Backup & Disaster Recovery

In an enterprise setting, a database is only as good as its last backup. Samyama Enterprise includes a comprehensive data protection suite that ensures zero data loss and minimal downtime.

Backup Strategies

graph TD
    Strategy["Choose Backup Strategy"] --> Full["Full Snapshot"]
    Strategy --> Incremental["Incremental (WAL Delta)"]
    Strategy --> PITR["Point-in-Time Recovery"]

    Full -- "Complete RocksDB<br>BackupEngine snapshot" --> Store["Backup Store"]
    Incremental -- "Only changed WAL<br>entries since last backup" --> Store
    PITR -- "Snapshot + WAL replay<br>to exact timestamp" --> Restore["Restored Database"]

    Store --> Restore

Samyama supports three distinct levels of backup:

1. Full Snapshots

Leveraging RocksDB’s BackupEngine, Samyama can create a consistent, point-in-time snapshot of the entire database state without blocking incoming queries. These snapshots are stored in a dedicated backup directory and can be moved to off-site storage (e.g., AWS S3).

2. Incremental Backups

To optimize for storage and speed, Samyama can perform incremental backups. It tracks the Write-Ahead Log (WAL) sequence numbers and only archives the data blocks that have changed since the last full or incremental backup.

3. Point-in-Time Recovery (PITR)

This is the most advanced feature of our recovery engine. By replaying the archived WAL entries against a snapshot, Samyama can restore the database to an exact moment in time.

  • Use Case: If a developer accidentally runs a MATCH (n) DELETE n query at 10:30:05 AM, the administrator can restore the system to 10:30:04 AM, undoing the damage with microsecond precision.

The ADMIN.BACKUP Protocol

Backups are managed via the RESP protocol using standard Redis-compatible clients.

# Create a new backup
redis-cli ADMIN.BACKUP CREATE

# List existing backups
redis-cli ADMIN.BACKUP LIST

# Verify the integrity of a backup
redis-cli ADMIN.BACKUP VERIFY 5

Retention Policies

To prevent disk exhaustion, Samyama Enterprise allows administrators to define automatic retention policies:

  • Max Count: Keep only the last $N$ backups.
  • Max Age: Automatically delete backups older than $X$ days.

This automated maintenance ensures that the system remains operational without manual intervention, providing peace of mind for site reliability engineers.

Recovery Guarantees

MetricGuarantee
RPO (Recovery Point Objective)Zero data loss with WAL-based incremental backups; microsecond precision with PITR
RTO (Recovery Time Objective)Minutes for full snapshot restore; seconds for WAL replay of recent changes
ConsistencyBackups use RocksDB’s BackupEngine which creates a consistent snapshot without blocking writes
Concurrent WritesBackup operations do not block incoming queries—RocksDB snapshots are lock-free

Developer Tip: Schedule backups during off-peak hours for minimal performance impact. Use ADMIN.BACKUP VERIFY periodically to ensure backup integrity before you need them.