Backup / Restore for Vertica 24.x+

[alita1991]

Hi,

I'm looking for a backup and restore procedure for VerticaDB 24.x+ that covers the following scenarios:

• The current VerticaDB cluster has failed, and I need to set up a new cluster and restore the backup
• I accidentally deleted a database and need to restore it

Later, I plan to use the procedure to automate backup and restore with Kanister. I'm aware that the vbr utility is no longer available starting with version 24.x.

Thank you

[ifalex]

I'm also interested in this procedure. As I see in official documentation vbr and admintools was removed from official image for vertica.
Despite of this, vbr is still regarded as the principal backup/restore procedure for non-containerized installations.
Therefore is there any plan to deprecate vbr? What are the plans for backup/restore for containerized installs?
Currently VerticaRestorePointsQuery does not cover all the scenarios that vbr would cover.
Could you help in here @qindotguan ?

[qindotguan]

Containerized Vertica with 24.1+ now supports in-db backup and restore. If in-db restore points were created, we can restore the database to the saved in-db restore points:
https://docs.vertica.com/25.1.x/en/containerized/custom-resource-definitions/vertica-restorepoints-query/#restore-the-database

For example, suppose the original database failed or was deleted, we can edit the vdb CR (yaml file) to set initPolicy set to Revive and add a restorePoint section with a restore point (archive) specified. Make sure to use the original db communal storage in the CR:

  spec:
    initPolicy: Revive
    restorePoint:
      archive: "nightly"
      index: 1
    communal:
      path: s3://vertica-bucket/vertdb           # the original communal storage of the db
    ...

Once the CR is applied, you will get a db restored to the specified restore point.

In case there were no in-db restore points saved, we can always revive from the communal storage (without restore points specified) to get a running database:

  spec:
    initPolicy: Revive
    communal:
      path: s3://vertica-bucket/vertdb           # the original communal storage of the db

[ifalex]

I understand from official documentation that RestorePoints are still beta features, right?
Will it match vbr's covered scenarios?
Will vbr be deprecated?
For non-containerized installations vbr is still the recommended backup/restore procedure, right?
Having a look on scenarios where vbr should be used for backup:

Before…

Upgrading Vertica to another release.
Dropping a partition.
Adding, removing, or replacing nodes in the database cluster.

After…

Loading a large volume of data.
Adding, removing, or replacing nodes in the database cluster.
Recovering a cluster from a crash.

If…

The epoch of the latest backup predates the current ancient history mark.

Is restorePoint with vclusterops able to fulfill all the scenarios that vbr can do?

I'm not taking in consideration reviving from communal storage at this moment, this was always the 3rd option for restoring a database.

I',m trying to understand what's the parity between vbr and restorepoints (if any) and what would be the lifecycle of backup/restore functionality starting with 24.1.x where vbr/admintools where removed from the docker image.

From my understanding vbr still works as a backup/restore solution also for 24.1.x and above, just that the tooling isn't still in the docker image. (So eventually creating a custom image with this tool could re-enable the previous behavior)
Am I right in this assumption?
Thanks for answering!

[cchen-vertica]

@ifalex For Eon mode databases, in-database (in-db) backup is the recommended approach, although vbr can still be used for non-Kubernetes Eon databases.

The RestorePoints feature is no longer in beta as of Vertica 24.4 and supports all backup and restore use cases.

Note that vbr has been removed from the official Vertica Docker images starting in 24.1.x due to security concerns, and ssh has also been removed from these images. While you're free to use vbr in your custom image, please be aware that Vertica does not provide support for any vbr issues in such setups.