A Cloud Platform application has three principal parts: code, databases, and files. There are several types of backups available on Cloud Platform:

• Automated database backups
• On-demand database backups
• Custom full site backups
• Cloud Platform Enterprise availability and disaster recovery

Automated database backups¶

Daily backups from the last three days are always available in the Cloud Platform user interface and are listed as Automatic (Daily) on the Databases page. These daily backups are required and cannot be disabled. However, you can take on-demand backups at any time, for example, for critical stages of development. You must periodically check to ensure that backups complete as expected and test if you can restore websites from a backup copy.

On-demand database backups¶

You can take on-demand backups of any database through one of the following ways:

• Applications > Environments
• Applications > [Environment] > Overview
• Databases
• Create a backup

These backups are listed as Manual backups on the Databases page in the Cloud Platform user interface. Cloud Platform keeps your on-demand backups until you delete them. Based on the utilized resources, database backup times might vary for the same size of database.

Taking a database backup on an application’s Environments page¶

1. Sign in to the Cloud Platform user interface.
2. Select your application.

3. On the card for the environment you want to back up, select the Back up databases icon.

   
4. In the list of databases, do one of the following:
   • To take backup of specific databases, select the checkboxes corresponding to those databases.
   • To take backup for all databases, select the Select All checkbox.
5. Select Continue.
6. In the confirmation dialog box, select Back up.

Taking a database backup on an environment’s Overview page¶

1. Sign in to the Cloud Platform user interface.

2. Access a specific environment in your application.

   
3. In the Databases card, select Back up.
4. In the list of databases, do one of the following:
   • To take backup of specific databases, select the checkboxes corresponding to those databases.
   • To take backup for all databases, select the Select All checkbox.
5. Select Continue.
6. In the confirmation dialog box, select Back up.

Taking a database backup on the Databases page¶

1. Sign in to the Cloud Platform user interface.
2. Access a specific environment in your application, and click Databases.
3. Do one of the following:

   • To take the backup of a single database, locate the database, click the Kebab menu, and select the corresponding Back up option.

     

   • To take the backup of multiple databases, select the databases and click Back up.

     

4. In the Back up a databases dialog box, select Back up.

   The backup process may take a few minutes.

5. To view the backup you created, select the databases for which you took the backup earlier.

   The system displays all the backups on the Backups tab.

Downloading database backups¶

To download a specific backup of a database:

1. Sign in to the Cloud Platform user interface.
2. Access a specific environment in your application, and click Databases.
3. Select the database for which you want to download the backup.
4. On the Backups tab, locate the backup that you want to download, click the Kebab menu, and select the corresponding Download option.
5. In the confirmation box, click Download.

To download the latest backup of a database:

1. Sign in to the Cloud Platform user interface.
2. Access a specific environment in your application, and click Databases.
3. Click Download latest backup for the database that you want to download.
4. In the confirmation box, click Download.

Restoring database backups¶

To restore database backups:

1. Sign in to the Cloud Platform user interface.
2. Access a specific environment in your application, and click Databases.
3. Select the database that contains the backup that you want to restore.
4. On the Backups tab, locate the backup that you want to restore, click the Kebab menu, and select the corresponding Restore option.
5. In the confirmation box, click Restore.

Deleting database backups¶

To delete database backups:

1. Sign in to the Cloud Platform user interface.
2. Access a specific environment in your application, and click Databases.
3. Select the database that contains the backup that you want to delete.
4. On the Backups tab, locate the backup that you want to delete, click the Kebab menu, and select the corresponding Remove option.
5. In the confirmation box, click Remove.

Downloading backups from the command line¶

You can also download any of your database backups using the command line. Using Acquia CLI, you can find the backup as follows:

acli api:environments:database-backup-list

You can download the backup as follows:

acli api:environments:database-backup-download

For more information, see Acquia CLI commands.

Code backups¶

Your code is maintained in a version control repository managed by Acquia. Each time you use the Cloud Platform user interface to click-and-drag code from an environment running either master or a branch, a new tag is created in the version control system. You can revert to an earlier tag at any time in any of your environments.

File backups¶

Your uploaded files are kept separate from your Drupal codebase and database, using a symbolic link to your application’s /files directory. The Git version control system can manage text files full of code, but is less well suited for managing large collections of user-uploaded objects, such as images, videos, or file attachments.

Cloud Platform makes internal disaster recovery snapshots of your files, but these are not available for subscribers for normal backup purposes. If you want to back up your uploaded files, you can either do so manually from the command line or create a cron task to make backups on a regular schedule.

For more information, see Working with files and Backing up your Drupal file system.

Custom full site backups¶

To back up your whole application on an environment from the command line, you can use Drush. 

drush @example1.prod archive-dump

Related topics¶

• Working with databases
• Working with files
• Backing up your Drupal file system