--- title: "Taking backups" date: "2024-02-14T06:18:38+00:00" summary: "Learn how to protect your Cloud Platform application with automated and on-demand database backups, code versioning, and file system management. Discover best practices for creating, downloading, and restoring backups to ensure data safety and site reliability." image: type: "page" url: "/acquia-cloud-platform/taking-backups" id: "f5a79ae0-a8ee-4fea-90e3-bc3f8eafd6cd" --- Table of contents will be added 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](#cloud-db-backups) * [On-demand database backups](#backup-db) * [Custom full site backups](#cloud-full-application-backups) * [Cloud Platform Enterprise availability and disaster recovery](/acquia-cloud-platform/architecture/security/availability) Note For information about backups in Site Factory, see [Backing up sites](/site-factory/manage/website/backup). 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. For Cloud Next * Automated database backups are always generated overnight based on the regional location of the infrastructure. * The Cloud Platform user interface may occasionally display two daily backup tasks for the same day, indicating the backups taken at different times of the day. On-demand database backups -------------------------- You can take on-demand backups of any database through one of the following ways: * [Applications > Environments](#database-backup-environment) * [Applications > \[Environment\] > Overview](#database-backup-overview) * [Databases](#database-backup-databases) * [Create a backup](https://cloudapi-docs.acquia.com/#/Environments/postEnvironmentsDatabaseBackups) 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. Important * Database backup operation times out after 12 hours. * In Cloud Classic, your database backup copies count against the storage space limit associated with your subscription as the copies are stored in your file system. However, in Cloud Next, database backup copies are not stored in your file system and therefore are not counted against your subscription limit. ### 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. ![cloud-platform_backing-u- a-database-from-the-environments-page.png](https://acquia.widen.net/content/50bfc949-fc23-4152-ad55-4d670b202994/web/cloud-platform_backing-u-%20a-database-from-the-environments-page.png) 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](/node/55875). 2. Access a specific environment in your application. ![cloud-platform_backing-up-from-the-overview-page.png](https://acquia.widen.net/content/3d0a63c5-08e7-4699-a83d-234a8e073d34/web/cloud-platform_backing-up-from-the-overview-page.png) 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](/node/55875). 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. ![cloud-platform_backup-one-database.png](https://acquia.widen.net/content/5a1c73f1-5434-4603-aff8-4a31b7e42410/web/cloud-platform_backup-one-database.png) * To take the backup of multiple databases, select the databases and click **Back up**. ![cloud-platform_backup-multiple-database.png](https://acquia.widen.net/content/b0574a19-62e7-46bf-93f5-2248dd456b62/web/cloud-platform_backup-multiple-database.png) 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 Note For information about determining the database name for a website hosted by Site Factory, see [Website metadata](/site-factory/manage/website#acsf-website-metadata). To download a specific backup of a database: 1. [Sign in to the Cloud Platform user interface](/node/55875). 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](/node/55875). 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 Note Ensure that the database restore location has more size than the size of the database. To restore database backups: 1. [Sign in to the Cloud Platform user interface](/node/55875). 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](/node/55875). 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](/acquia-cloud-platform/add-ons/acquia-cli/other-examples "Other examples"). 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](/acquia-cloud-platform/manage-apps/files) and [Backing up your Drupal file system](/acquia-cloud-platform/help/92586-backing-your-drupal-file-system "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.  Note The [current Drupal version](https://docs.acquia.com/service-offerings/guide/software-life-cycle#supported-drupal-version "https://docs.acquia.com/service-offerings/guide/software-life-cycle#supported-drupal-version") requires Drush 11 or later. Therefore, you must install Drush 11 or later only through Composer as Acquia does not manage the update to newer versions. For more information, see [About Drush on Cloud Platform](https://docs.acquia.com/acquia-cloud-platform/manage-apps/command-line/drush "https://docs.acquia.com/acquia-cloud-platform/manage-apps/command-line/drush"). ### Drush 7/8 The `drush archive-dump` command creates a complete archive file of your application. Important Running this command on a large website (with large numbers of files, large databases, or volumes with a small files area) can lead to a full disk, which will cause the script to hang and will cause a website outage. For example, to back up the Prod environment of an application named `example1`: drush @example1.prod archive-dump By default, the backup file is saved to the `drush-backups` folder. Use the `--destination` option to specify the full path and file name in which the archive should be stored. For more information, see [About Drush on Cloud Platform](/acquia-cloud-platform/manage-apps/command-line/drush) and the [Drush Commands](https://www.drush.org/11.x/commands/archive_dump/) reference. ### Drush 11 and later The `drush archive:dump` command creates a complete archive file of your application. Important Running this command on a large website (with large numbers of files, large databases, or volumes with a small files area) can lead to a full disk, which will cause the script to hang and will cause a website outage. For example, to back up the Prod environment of an application named `example1`: drush @example1.prod archive:dump By default, the backup file is saved to the `drush-backups` folder. Use the `--destination` option to specify the full path and file name in which the archive should be stored. For more information, see [About Drush on Cloud Platform](/acquia-cloud-platform/manage-apps/command-line/drush) and the [Drush Commands](https://drushcommands.com/drush-8x/core/archive-dump/) reference. Related topics -------------- * [Working with databases](/acquia-cloud-platform/manage-apps/database) * [Working with files](/acquia-cloud-platform/manage-apps/files) * [Backing up your Drupal file system](/acquia-cloud-platform/help/92586-backing-your-drupal-file-system "Backing up your Drupal file system")