Backup and Recovery¶

The AWS Enhanced Studio Pack provides Helix Core Checkpoints and Volume level snapshots out of the box.

Helix Core Checkpoints¶

Refer to the Helix Core Server Administrator Guide for details on checkpoints. At a high level a checkpoint is a point in time backup of the Helix Core database.

The checkpointing process is turned on by default and will run daily. The checkpoint files will live in the /p4/1/checkpoints/ directory which is located on the Helix Core Depot volume.

Automated Snapshots¶

At deployment time there is a CloudFormation Parameter EnableBackups that defaults to true. If the deployer opts into the feature then a AWS Data Lifecycle Manager policy is created which will create a daily volume snapshot of the Helix Core Depot and Logs volumes.

In the event that a restore is required there are two options:

New Deployment with Restore from Backup¶

If there is a catastrophic failure (accidental EC2 termination, etc) the easiest method to get back up and running is to perform a new Enhanced Studio Pack deployment and leverage the CloudFormation parameter DepotContentSnapshotID. This parameter will take in an EBS Snapshot ID that was created via AWS Data Lifecycle Manager policy. On boot both the Helix Core Metadata and Depot data will be restored.

In-place Restore¶

In a less catastrophic event you could use your existing Helix Core infrastructure and just restore a backup. An example procedure would look like this:

1) Identify what point in time you want to restore from 2) Identify which EBS Snapshot created from the AWS Data Lifecycle Manager policy will satisfy the point in time requirement 3) Create an EBS volume from the EBS Snapshot 4) Attach the newly created volume to your Helix Core EC2 5) Mount the file system 6) Review the Helix Core Server Administrator Guide for steps on restoring from backups