This topic describes the Tablestore backup feature, including its benefits, how it works, procedure, and fees.
Introduction
Tablestore is a multi-model structured data storage service from Alibaba Cloud. It stores massive amounts of structured data and supports fast queries and analytics. Cloud Backup lets you back up Tablestore data and restore it when needed.
This feature has some limits. For more information, see Limits.
Benefits
Native Tablestore backup
You can back up Tablestore data tables without installing any backup components.
Flexible data versioning
You can configure scheduled incremental backups by day, week, month, or year. You can also specify a retention period for backup points to manage data versions.
Simple table data restoration
If a system failure or an error occurs with a Tablestore instance, you can restore table data from the backup vault to the source Tablestore instance or to another specified Tablestore instance. You can restore only one table at a time.
Data deduplication and compression
Tablestore backup uses data deduplication and compression to save backup storage space.
Locking a backup prevents it from being accidentally or maliciously deleted.
Cloud Backup provides a backup locking feature for backup vaults. This feature prevents backup data from being deleted by any account or method before the configured retention period expires.
How it works
Cloud Backup supports an agentless backup mode. You do not need to deploy additional computing resources. You can simply add Tablestore instances to the list of protected instances in Cloud Backup. The system then automatically performs full and incremental backups. Cloud Backup uses the Lindorm Tunnel Service (LTS) of Tablestore to establish real-time data tunnels for data tables. This enables the following features:
Full backup: Creates a complete copy of all data in the data tables during the initial backup.
Incremental backup: Continuously captures new or changed data since the last backup to enable real-time data synchronization.
A backup chain consists of one full backup and multiple incremental backups. This lets you restore data from any point in time. This mechanism ensures that you can quickly roll back data to a specified historical state in the event of accidental data deletion, failures, or exceptions. This ensures business continuity.
Procedure
The following procedure shows how to back up tables on a Tablestore instance in the Cloud Backup console.
You are not charged for activating Cloud Backup. If you use the Tablestore backup feature, you are charged for the storage usage of the backup vault.
You are not charged for Cloud Backup within 30 days after you use the Tablestore backup feature for the first time.
When you use the Tablestore backup feature, backup vaults are created. The fees for the backup vaults are included into your Cloud Backup bills. For more information, see Billing methods and billable items.
If you restore data to a Tablestore instance, you are charged for the data write throughput. The fees are included into your Tablestore bills. For more information, see Billing overview.
When you create a backup plan, configure the full backup and incremental backup policies, backup vault, and retention period. Cloud Backup starts the backup plan and continuously backs up data from the specified Tablestore instance.
When you restore data, Cloud Backup is free of charge. The restoration fees are included into your Tablestore bills.
If a system failure or error occurs on a Tablestore instance, you can restore the table data in the backup vault to the source Tablestore instance or another specified Tablestore instance. You can restore only one table at a time.
Fees
When you use the Tablestore backup feature, the following fees apply:
Storage capacity fee
You are charged based on the storage capacity that your backup data uses in the backup vault. You can view details about the backup vault on the Overview page of the Cloud Backup console. Cloud Backup provides two backup storage types: locally redundant storage and zone-redundant storage. For more information, see Pricing.
Restoration fee
If you restore data to a Tablestore instance, Tablestore charges a fee for the data write throughput. For more information, see Tablestore billing.
In addition, Cloud Backup charges the following fees based on specific backup configurations or operations:
What to do next
You can back up Tablestore data tables. For more information, see Back up Tablestore data tables.
Learn about the best practices of Cloud Backup. For more information, see Best practices.