04 - RDS backup and Restore

Question 1

RPO - Recovery point objective

Answer 1

• Time between last backup and incident
• Amount of maximum data loss
• Influences cost - the lower the RPO the higher the cost

Question 2

RTO - Recovery time objective

Answer 2

• Time between the DR event and full recovery
• Influenced by processes, staff, technology, and documentation
• Generally the lower the RTO, the higher the cost

Question 3

Backups

Answer 3

• Automated Backups - Use S3
• Manual Backups - Use S3
• S3 resiliency

Question 4

Snapshots

Answer 4

• Snapshot are manual and run against a RDS instance
• First snapshot is full backup
• Additional snapshot are incremental
• Small interruption to service
• Manual snapshots do not expire
• Snapshot take full instance including all DBs
• RDS can be configured for automated backups
• Occur during backup window

Question 5

Transaction Logs

Answer 5

• In addition every 5 min DB transaction logs are written to S3
• 5min RPO
• Automatic backups cleaned up 0-35 days
• Only way to ensure is a final snapshot
• Restore creates a new RDS instance - creates a new endpoint for the DB
• Snapshots single point in time.
• Automated any 5 minute point in time. Transaction logs.