Dedicated backup and restores

Backups are retained for different periods depending on various factors and whether you’re using a Dedicated Gen 2 or Dedicated Gen 3 Environment. These processes can be either manual or automated.

Dedicated Generation 2 Backups

Platform.sh takes a byte-for-byte snapshot of Dedicated Gen 2 production environments every 6 hours. Backups are retained for different durations depending on when they were taken. 

Backup retention period	Retention	# of backups from time period available
1–3 days ago	Every backup taken in that period	6 (1 day) to 18 (3 days)
4-6 days ago	One backup per day in that period	1 (4 days) to 3 (6 days)
2–6 weeks ago	One backup per week	1 (2 weeks) to 5 (6 weeks)
8–12 weeks ago	One bi-weekly backup	1 (8 weeks) to 3 (12 weeks)
12–22 weeks ago	One backup per month	1 (12 weeks) to 3 (22 weeks)

Put another way, the number of backups available for restoration - in each of the backup age groupings described above - might look as follows for a few Dedicated environment ages:

Environment age	72 hours old or younger	4-6 days old	2-6 weeks old	8-12 weeks old	12-22 old	Total
1 week	18	3	0	0	0	21
12 weeks	18	3	5	3	0	29
52+ weeks	18	3	5	3	3	32

Backups are created using snapshots saved to encrypted elastic block storage (EBS) volumes. An EBS snapshot is immediate, but the time it takes to write to the storage service depends on the volume of changes.

• Recovery Point Objective (RPO) is 6 hours (maximum time to last backup).
• Recovery Time Objective (RTO) depends on the size of the storage. Large EBS volumes take more time to restore.

These backups are only used in cases of catastrophic failure and can only be restored by Platform.sh. To request a restoration, open a support ticket.

Dedicated Generation 2 restoration

  The restoration process for Dedicated Generation 2 Environments may take a few hours, depending on the infrastructure provider in use. In the ticket, specify if you want backups of files, MySQL, or both. Uploaded files are placed in an SSH-accessible directory on the Dedicated Gen 2 cluster. 

MySQL is provided as a MySQL dump file on the server. You may restore these to your site at your leisure. You are also free to make your own backups using standard tools (mysqldump, rsync, etc.).

 

Dedicated Generation 3 

For Dedicated Generation 3 Environments, automated backups are retained for a specific amount of time depending on their type and your backup schedule. Manual backups are retained until you delete them or replace them with another backup.

Type	Basic	Advanced	Premium
6-hourly	-	-	1 day
Daily	2 days	1 week	1 month
Weekly	-	4 weeks	-
Monthly	-	1 year	1 year

Dedication Generation 3 restores

Dedicated Generation 3 Environments allow for backups and restores the same way as Grid, so you can use them with the management console and the Platform.sh CLI.