Database Backup (DBS) provides a complete sandbox solution for MySQL and Oracle databases based on copy data management (CDM). You can use the DBS sandbox feature to create a sandbox instance (ApsaraDB RDS emergency instance) to restore data of a backup set. Read and write operations performed within sandbox instances do not affect source databases. You can perform a variety of operations within sandbox instances, such as recovery drill, development and testing, query and analysis, and emergency disaster recovery.

Background information

In scenarios where you want to back up large amounts of data, traditional database backup services have the following disadvantages:
  • High storage costs: Large amounts of duplicate data are generated, and high storage costs are incurred. This is because full and incremental backups must be performed on a regular basis to ensure recovery point objectives (RPOs).
  • High usage costs: You must restore data before it can be used. Large amounts of bandwidth, disk I/O resources, and CPU resources are required to restore large amounts of data. Restoration is costly and extends data recovery time objectives (RTOs) to hours.

DBS provides a complete sandbox solution for MySQL and Oracle databases based on CDM.

  • MySQL sandbox instance: DBS provides storage and computing resources for MySQL sandbox instances and hosts the service process of instances. You can remotely access your database instances.
  • Oracle sandbox instance: DBS provides storage resources for Oracle sandbox instances based on a remote file system and hosts the service process of instances. The computing resources of Oracle sandbox instances are provided by your Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instances.

Benefits

  • Physical backup of databases: accelerates the data backup and restoration of database files.
  • Data deduplication: significantly reduces the storage costs of backup data.
  • Storage snapshot and clone: allows backup data to be available in a short period of time. No data is copied.
  • Storage virtualization: uses sandbox instances of cloud resources without dependencies on your production instances. Read and write operations performed within sandbox instances do not affect source databases.

Typical scenarios

  • Development and testing based on online data (Dev or Ops):

    Testing and prerelease are verified based on existing online data, and online data must be protected from being corrupted. The DBS sandbox feature can provide replicas of full historical data and meet the requirements of rapid iteration, tests, and data reliability.

  • Online emergency disaster recovery:

    The DBS sandbox feature allows the backup system to deliver an RPO or RTO within minutes and immediately restore online data. Compared with multi-active and hot backup, the DBS sandbox feature also provides data rollback capabilities, which allows you to quickly roll back dirty data.

  • Disaster recovery drill:

    Disaster recovery drills are performed on a regular basis based on the quick restoration capabilities and the pay-as-you-go billing method of DBS sandbox instances. This is suitable for the scenarios where high data reliability is required. For more information, see Perform disaster recovery drills.

  • Ad hoc analysis of historical data:

    In data analysis scenarios, you must perform ad hoc queries on historical data based on your current requirements. The DBS sandbox feature can provide replicas of full historical data for queries. Unlike solutions for offline historical data analysis based on big data platforms, the DBS sandbox feature can provide SQL interfaces of original databases. This eliminates the need for developers to write offline analysis scripts and reduces storage costs by using snapshot storage.

Billing

For more information, see DBS sandbox fees.

What to do next

Create a sandbox instance for the emergency disaster recovery of a self-managed database