Use Backup-Based Disaster Recovery
Backup-Based Disaster Recovery provides a lower-cost disaster recovery option for Autonomous Database (the RTO is higher with this option, as compared to using Autonomous Data Guard).
Autonomous Database Disaster Recovery Options
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Backup-Based Disaster Recovery: uses backups to instantiate a peer database at the time of switchover or failover. This enables you to have a lower cost and higher Recovery Time Objective (RTO) disaster recovery option for your Autonomous Database, as compared with Autonomous Data Guard. For local Backup-Based Disaster Recovery, existing local backups are utilized. There are no additional costs for a local Backup-Based Disaster Recovery. Cross-Region Backup-Based Disaster Recovery incurs an additional cost.
Backup-Based Disaster Recovery is available for all workload types.
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Autonomous Data Guard: When you add an Autonomous Data Guard standby database, the system creates a standby database that continuously gets updated with the changes from the primary database. You can use Autonomous Data Guard with a standby in the current region, a local standby, or with a standby in a different region, a cross-region standby. You can also use Autonomous Data Guard with both a local standby and a cross-region standby.
You can also create an Autonomous Data Guard standby in a different tenancy.
Autonomous Data Guard is available for the following workload types:
- Data Warehouse
- Transaction Processing
See Use Standby Databases with Autonomous Data Guard for Disaster Recovery for details on Autonomous Data Guard.
Topics
- About Backup-Based Disaster Recovery
Backup-Based Disaster Recovery uses backups to instantiate a peer database at the time of switchover or failover. This enables you to have a lower cost and higher Recovery Time Objective (RTO) disaster recovery option for your Autonomous Database, as compared with Autonomous Data Guard. - View Backup-Based Disaster Recovery Peer
Backup-Based Disaster Recovery with a local peer is enabled by default for a newly created Autonomous Database instance, and for existing databases. A local Backup-Based Disaster Recovery peer does not incur any additional cost. - Add a Cross-Region Disaster Recovery Peer
In addition to a local Backup-Based Disaster Recovery peer, you can add one or more remote region (cross-region) Backup-Based Disaster Recovery peers. - Update Disaster Recovery Type
Describes the steps to change to an alternative Disaster Recovery option. - Disable a Cross-Region (Remote) Peer
Describes the steps to terminate a cross-region (remote) peer. - Perform a Switchover to a Backup Copy Peer
When you perform a switchover, the primary database becomes the backup copy and the backup copy becomes the primary database, with no data loss. - Perform a Failover
When the primary database goes down, with Backup-Based Disaster Recovery you can perform a manual failover to make the local peer the primary database. - Convert Cross-Region Backup-Based Disaster Recovery Peer to Snapshot Standby
A cross-region Backup-Based Disaster Recovery peer can be converted to a snapshot standby. This converts the peer to a read-write database for up to two days. - Update Remote Peer Network ACLs for a Backup-Based Disaster Recovery Peer
You can independently modify network ACLs on a remote disaster recovery peer database. - Use the API
Provides links for details on using API operations to manage Backup-Based Disaster Recovery. - Backup-Based Disaster Recovery Events
You can use Oracle Cloud Infrastructure events to respond when Autonomous Database changes its state due to a Backup-Based Disaster Recovery related event.
Parent topic: High Availability
About Backup-Based Disaster Recovery
Backup-Based Disaster Recovery uses backups to instantiate a peer database at the time of switchover or failover. This enables you to have a lower cost and higher Recovery Time Objective (RTO) disaster recovery option for your Autonomous Database, as compared with Autonomous Data Guard.
You can use Backup-Based Disaster Recovery with a peer in the current region, a local peer, or with one or more disaster recovery peers in different regions, or you can add both a local disaster recovery peer and one or more a remote disaster recovery peers. You can also create a Backup-Based Disaster Recovery peer, either local or remote in a different tenancy.
Backup-Based Disaster Recovery (backup copy) is available in all Autonomous Database workload types. Backup-Based Disaster Recovery is not available with Always Free Autonomous Database.
Backup-Based Disaster Recovery with Local Peer
For local Backup-Based Disaster Recovery, existing local backups are utilized. There are no additional costs for local Backup-Based Disaster Recovery.
- In regions with more than one availability domain, a local peer is instantiated in a different availability domain than the primary database.
- In regions with a single availability domain, a local peer is instantiated in a different fault domain than the primary database (that is, on a different physical machine).
All Autonomous Database features from the primary database are available when a peer is instantiated and becomes the primary, after the system fails over or after you perform a switchover operation. See Autonomous Data Guard with Local Standby for more information.
Backup-Based Disaster Recovery with Cross-Region Peer
For backup-based disaster recovery with a cross-region peer, backups are copied to the remote region. Cross-region Backup-Based Disaster Recovery incurs additional costs.
Autonomous Database allows you to create one or more remote disaster recovery peer databases, depending on your compute model:
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OCPU Compute Model: You can add one remote disaster recovery peer in a paired region. Paired regions are remote regions where you can create a cross-region peer.
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ECPU Compute Model: You can add multiple remote disaster recovery peers, with up to one peer in each remote paired region. For example if your primary database is in the IAD region, you can add a remote peer in PHX and in SJC, but you cannot add two remote peers in PHX.
Paired regions are remote regions where you can create a cross-region disaster recovery peer. See Autonomous Database Cross-Region Paired Regions for more information on paired regions.
Topics
- Backup-Based Disaster Recovery Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO)
When you perform a failover using with Backup-Based Disaster Recovery enabled, the peer instance assumes the role of the primary instance, according to the Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO). - Replicating Backups to a Cross-Region Backup Based Disaster Recovery Peer
When you add a cross-region Backup-Based Disaster Recovery peer you can enable cross-region backup replication for automatic backups.
Parent topic: Use Backup-Based Disaster Recovery
Backup-Based Disaster Recovery Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO)
When you perform a failover using with Backup-Based Disaster Recovery enabled, the peer instance assumes the role of the primary instance, according to the Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO).
The RTO is the maximum amount of time required to restore database connectivity to a backup copy database after a failover is initiated. The RPO is the maximum duration of potential data loss, in minutes, on the primary database.
Backup-Based Disaster Recovery RTO and RPO numbers are:
Backup-Based Disaster Recovery Configuration | RTO | RPO |
---|---|---|
Local backup copy |
one (1) hour + 1 hour per 5 TB |
10 seconds |
Cross-region (remote) backup copy |
one (1) hour + 1 hour per 5 TB |
1 min |
Parent topic: About Backup-Based Disaster Recovery
Replicating Backups to a Cross-Region Backup Based Disaster Recovery Peer
When you add a cross-region Backup-Based Disaster Recovery peer you can enable cross-region backup replication for automatic backups.
By default, automatic backups are created and maintained at the current Primary database and are not replicated to a cross-region peer. Optionally, you can enable replication of the automatic backups to a cross-region peer.
When you enable cross-region backup replication, up to 7 days of automatic backups for the primary are replicated to a cross-region peer. When this feature is enabled automatic backups are available in the remote region as follows:
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After a switchover or failover you can restore or clone to any timestamp in the past seven (7) days, or to any timestamp in the specified retention period when the retention period is set to less than seven days.
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All backups for the primary that are replicated to the remote region are deleted on the remote region peer after seven days, or after the retention period number of days when the retention period is set to less than seven days.
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You cannot modify the backup retention period for replicated backups, except if you modify the backup retention period on the primary to specify a value less than seven days. In this case, the retention period for replicated backups on the remote region matches the automatic backup retention period set on the primary.
The cross-region backup replication incurs an additional cost. See Oracle Autonomous Database Serverless Features Billing for more information.
See the following for more information:
Note the following for cross-region backup replication:
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After a switchover or a failover, while the cross-region database is in the primary role, backups are taken on the current primary and are replicated to the current (remote) peer.
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When using Backup-Based Disaster Recovery with a cross-region peer, this feature is supported for all workload types.
Parent topic: About Backup-Based Disaster Recovery
View Backup-Based Disaster Recovery Peer
Backup-Based Disaster Recovery with a local peer is enabled by default for a newly created Autonomous Database instance, and for existing databases. A local Backup-Based Disaster Recovery peer does not incur any additional cost.
Perform the following prerequisite steps as necessary:
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Open the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Console by clicking the next to Oracle Cloud.
- From the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure left navigation menu click Oracle Database and then, depending on your workload click one of: Autonomous Data Warehouse, Autonomous JSON Database, or Autonomous Transaction Processing.
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On the Autonomous Databases page select your Autonomous Database from the links under the Display name column.
To view the disaster recovery information for your Autonomous Database, do the following:
On the Autonomous Database Details page, in the Resources area click Disaster recovery. The DR Type field indicates the type of disaster recovery, either Backup-Based Disaster Recovery (Backup copy) or Autonomous Data Guard.
For example:
Parent topic: Use Backup-Based Disaster Recovery
Add a Cross-Region Disaster Recovery Peer
In addition to a local Backup-Based Disaster Recovery peer, you can add one or more remote region (cross-region) Backup-Based Disaster Recovery peers.
Perform the following prerequisite steps as necessary:
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Open the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Console by clicking the next to Oracle Cloud.
- From the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure left navigation menu click Oracle Database and then, depending on your workload click one of: Autonomous Data Warehouse, Autonomous JSON Database, or Autonomous Transaction Processing.
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On the Autonomous Databases page select your Autonomous Database from the links under the Display name column.
To add a cross-region Backup-Based Disaster Recovery peer, do the following:
Notes for adding a cross-region Backup-Based Disaster Recovery peer:
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Autonomous Database generates a work request. To view the work request, under Resources click Work Requests.
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After you add a cross-region (remote) peer, the wallet, and connection string from the primary database will contain only the hostname of the primary database, and the wallet and connection string from the remote database will contain only the hostname of the remote database. This applies to both instance and regional wallets.
See Cross-Region Disaster Recovery Connection Strings and Wallets for more information.
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If you select Enable cross-region backup replication to disaster recovery peer, it can take between several minutes and several hours to replicate the backups to the remote region, depending on the size of the backups. After backups are replicated, when you select Backups under Resources on the peer database's Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Console, you will see the list of replicated backups.
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When you add a cross region peer there are special considerations when the primary instance is using customer-managed keys, or if you want to switch to use customer-managed keys. See Autonomous Data Guard with Customer Managed Keys for more information.
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While you add a Backup-Based Disaster Recovery peer, while the Lifecycle State field shows Updating, the following actions are disabled for the primary database:
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Move Resource. See Move an Autonomous Database to a Different Compartment for information on moving an instance.
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Stop. See Stop Autonomous Database for information on stopping an instance.
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Restart. See Restart Autonomous Database for information on restarting an instance.
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Restore. See Restore and Recover your Autonomous Database for information on restoring.
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- Enable or Disable Backup Replication for an Existing Cross-Region Peer
You can enable or disable backup replication on a Backup-Based Disaster Recovery cross-region peer.
Parent topic: Use Backup-Based Disaster Recovery
Enable or Disable Backup Replication for an Existing Cross-Region Peer
To enable or disable backup replication for an existing cross-region Autonomous Data Guard standby:
If you select Enable cross-region backup replication to disaster recovery peer, it can take between several minutes and several hours to replicate the backups to the remote region, depending on the size of the backups. After backups are replicated, when you select Backups under Resources on the peer database's Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Console, you will see the list of replicated backups.
Parent topic: Add a Cross-Region Disaster Recovery Peer
Update Disaster Recovery Type
Describes the steps to change to an alternative Disaster Recovery option.
Backup-Based Disaster Recovery is enabled by default for an Autonomous Database with one local peer. Disaster Recovery cannot be disabled for an Autonomous Database instance. However, you can choose to update your Disaster recovery type to Autonomous Data Guard. See Use Standby Databases with Autonomous Data Guard for Disaster Recovery for more information about Autonomous Data Guard.
To update the Disaster recovery type:
Parent topic: Use Backup-Based Disaster Recovery
Disable a Cross-Region (Remote) Peer
Describes the steps to terminate a cross-region (remote) peer.
Perform the following prerequisite steps as necessary:
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Open the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Console by clicking the next to Oracle Cloud.
- From the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure left navigation menu click Oracle Database and then, depending on your workload click one of: Autonomous Data Warehouse, Autonomous JSON Database, or Autonomous Transaction Processing.
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On the Autonomous Databases page select your Autonomous Database from the links under the Display name column.
To terminate a cross-region (remote) peer:
There are limitations for disabling when an instance has a cross-region Backup-Based Disaster Recovery peer, as follows:
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A peer in the remote region cannot be disabled from the primary database.
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When Backup-Based Disaster Recovery is enabled with a cross-region peer, you must terminate all cross-region disaster recovery peers before you terminate the primary role database. If you attempt to terminate the primary, the system gives you an error.
In this case, after you terminate all cross-region (remote) peers, you can terminate the primary database.
Parent topic: Use Backup-Based Disaster Recovery
Perform a Switchover to a Backup Copy Peer
A switchover is typically done to test failover to the backup copy for audit or certification reasons, or to test your application's failover procedures when you have added a backup copy peer.
For switchover to a backup copy peer, the Autonomous Database Details page, shows the Switchover link under Disaster recovery and the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Console on the primary database also shows a Switchover link in the Role field when both the primary database and a backup copy peer are available. You can perform a switchover when the primary database Lifecycle State shows Available or Stopped, and a backup copy is available (the State field shows Standby).To see the peer state, under Resources click Disaster recovery and for the peer listed in the Peer Autonomous Database column, check that the State shows Standby.
Using the Autonomous Database API, you can initiate the switchover operation at any time. See Use the API for more information.
- Perform a Switchover to a Local Backup Copy Peer
When you perform a switchover the primary database becomes the peer, and the peer becomes the primary database, with no data loss. - Perform a Switchover to a Cross-Region Backup Copy Peer
When you perform a switchover, the primary database becomes the peer database and the peer database becomes the primary database, with no data loss. - Notes for Performing a Switchover to a Backup Copy Peer
Provides notes for Backup-Based Disaster Recovery switchover:
Parent topic: Use Backup-Based Disaster Recovery
Perform a Switchover to a Local Backup Copy Peer
When you perform a switchover the primary database becomes the peer, and the peer becomes the primary database, with no data loss.
A switchover is typically done to test failover to the peer for audit or certification reasons or to test your application's failover procedures with Backup-Based Disaster Recovery.
For a switchover to a backup copy, the Autonomous Database Details page, the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Console on the database with the Primary role shows a Switchover link in the Role field when both the primary database and a peer are available. You can perform a switchover when the primary database Lifecycle State shows Available or Stopped and a peer is available (the State field shows Standby).
To see the peer status, under Resources click Disaster recovery and for the peer listed in the Peer Autonomous Database column, check that the State field shows Standby.
Using the Autonomous Database API, you can initiate the switchover operation at any time. See Use the API for more information.
Perform the following prerequisite steps as necessary:
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Open the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Console by clicking the next to Oracle Cloud.
- From the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure left navigation menu click Oracle Database and then, depending on your workload click one of: Autonomous Data Warehouse, Autonomous JSON Database, or Autonomous Transaction Processing.
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On the Autonomous Databases page select your Autonomous Database from the links under the Display name column.
To perform a switchover, do the following:
When the switchover completes, Backup-Based Disaster Recovery does the following:
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The Backup-Based Disaster Recovery resource information is updated to reflect the switchover. Select Disaster recovery under Resources to see the updated information.
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Autonomous Database reports the time in the Role Changed On the field.
Parent topic: Perform a Switchover to a Backup Copy Peer
Perform a Switchover to a Cross-Region Backup Copy Peer
For a cross-region switchover you must initiate the switchover from the cross-region peer.
You have several options to access the cross-region peer:
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Select the remote region in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Console and then access the peer directly.
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Access the primary, and from the primary database you can access the peer from the Autonomous Database Details page by selecting Disaster recovery, under Resources and clicking the link for the backup copy peer in the Peer Autonomous Database column.
To perform a switchover:
When the switchover completes, Autonomous Database does the following:
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The display name shows the Primary indicator.
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The Disaster recovery resource information is updated to reflect the switchover. Under Resources select Disaster recovery to see the updated information.
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Autonomous Database reports the time of the last switchover when you hover over the in the Role field.
See Notes for Performing a Switchover for more information.
Parent topic: Perform a Switchover to a Backup Copy Peer
Notes for Performing a Switchover to a Backup Copy Peer
Provides notes for Backup-Based Disaster Recovery switchover:
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For a cross-region switchover, you must initiate the switchover from the cross-region peer.
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During the switchover, most of the actions on the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Console are not available and the Autonomous Database Information page shows the Lifecycle State with the value Updating.
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The switchover operation keeps the original state of the Primary database. If the Primary database is stopped when you perform a switchover, the Primary database is stopped after the switchover.
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Autonomous Database generates the Switchover Autonomous Database work request. To view the request, under Resources click Work Requests.
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After a switchover or failover to the peer, the peer becomes the Primary and the graphs on the Database Dashboard card in Database Actions and the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Metrics display information about the Primary database. The graphs and metrics do not contain information about the database that was the Primary before the switchover or failover operation.
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You cannot cancel a cross-region switchover operation after the switchover begins and the State shows Role change in progress. Your options to cancel the switchover are:
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Try or retry a switchover or a failover until the operation succeeds.
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File a service request at Oracle Cloud Support or contact your support representative.
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Parent topic: Perform a Switchover to a Backup Copy Peer
Perform a Failover
Backup-Based Disaster Recovery does not provide an automatic failover option. If you want to provide automatic failover, where the system monitors the primary instance and automatically fails over to a local standby database in certain scenarios, you need to change the disaster recovery type for the local instance to use Autonomous Data Guard.
With both a local Backup-Based Disaster Recovery peer and a cross-region Backup-Based Disaster Recovery peer, Oracle recommends that you attempt a manual failover to the local peer first (not to the cross-region peer).
Depending on how you enable Backup-Based Disaster Recovery, there are different steps to perform a manual failover to a peer:
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When you configure Backup-Based Disaster Recovery with only a local peer:
When you have a local peer and the switchover is not successful, the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure console shows a banner with information about why the switchover was not successful and the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure console shows a failover link in the Role field that you can click to initiate a failover to the local peer. The failover link only shows when the Primary database is unavailable and a peer is available. That is, the Primary database Lifecycle State field shows Unavailable and the local peer is available. Using the API, you can initiate manual failover at any time. See Use the API for information on using the API.
To see the peer status, under Resources click Disaster recovery and for the peer listed in the Peer Autonomous Database column check that the State field shows Available or Stopped. -
When you use Backup-Based Disaster Recovery with both a local peer and a cross-region (remote) peer:
With Backup-Based Disaster Recovery enabled with both a local peer and a cross-region peer, and the local peer is available, Oracle recommends that you attempt a manual failover to the local peer first (not to the cross-region peer).
If a local peer is unavailable or a manual failover to the local peer fails, you can perform a manual switchover to the cross-region peer. If the switchover to the cross-region peer fails, on the peer the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure console shows a failover link in the Role field that you can click to initiate a manual failover to the peer.
When you initiate a manual failover it is failed over to the peer based on the Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO) targets. See Backup-Based Disaster Recovery Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO) for more information.
Perform the following prerequisite steps as necessary:
-
Open the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Console by clicking the next to Oracle Cloud.
- From the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure left navigation menu click Oracle Database and then, depending on your workload click one of: Autonomous Data Warehouse, Autonomous JSON Database, or Autonomous Transaction Processing.
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On the Autonomous Databases page select your Autonomous Database from the links under the Display name column.
To initiate a manual failover to a cross-region backup copy, do the following:
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On the peer, perform a switchover. See Perform a Switchover to a Local Backup Copy Peer for details.
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If the switchover attempt in Step 1 fails, on the peer the Role field shows a Failover link. On the peer, click the Failover link.
This shows the Confirm manual failover to peer dialog, along with information on possible data loss that may result if you perform the manual failover to the peer.
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In the Confirm manual failover to peer dialog, enter the Autonomous Database name to confirm that you want to failover.
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In the Confirm manual failover to peer dialog, click Confirm manual failover to peer.
When concurrent operations such as scaling are active, the confirmation also confirms either pausing or canceling the concurrent operation. See Concurrent Operations on Autonomous Database for more information.
To initiate a manual failover when the Primary database is unavailable and the local Peer is available, do the following:
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After a manual failover operation completes you can see any data loss associated with the manual failover in the message on the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure console banner and if you hover over the in the Role field. The manual failover data loss is specified in minutes.
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After a manual failover with Backup-Based Disaster Recovery, if there was a regional failure, when the region comes back online the peer is automatically reconnected or if required reprovisioned.
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After you perform a manual failover to the cross-region peer, the cross-region peer becomes the primary database. In this case, if a local Autonomous Data Guard standby was enabled, a local Standby will be created and attached. If a local Autonomous Data Guard was not enabled before the failover in the primary database, as is the default, you have a local backup copy.
Parent topic: Use Backup-Based Disaster Recovery
Convert Cross-Region Backup-Based Disaster Recovery Peer to Snapshot Standby
Snapshot standby CPU usage is billed based on the base CPU count and any additional CPU usage if compute auto scaling is enabled. The number of base CPUs is specified by the number of ECPUs (OCPUs if your database uses OCPUs) as shown in the ECPU count or OCPU count field on the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Console.
Snapshot standby storage usage is billed based on the storage of the snapshot standby plus 1 x the storage of the primary database.
Parent topic: Use Backup-Based Disaster Recovery
Update Remote Peer Network ACLs for a Backup-Based Disaster Recovery Peer
By default the disaster recovery primary and remote peer databases use the same network Access Control Lists (ACLs). Optionally, you can configure ACLs independently on remote peer databases. This provides an option to use different ACLs on remote peer databases.
If you modify the ACLs on a remote peer, Autonomous Database no longer keeps the ACL configuration synchronized between the primary and the remote peer. After you modify the ACLs on a remote peer, Autonomous Database manages the ACLs on the remote peer independently.
To use different network ACLs on a remote Autonomous Database peer:
After you modify ACLs, the ACLs on the primary and on the remote peer are managed separately.
If you want to restart the synchronization of ACLs between the primary and the remote peer, you have two options:
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Terminate the peer Autonomous Database and create a new cross-region disaster recovery peer database.
See Disable a Cross-Region (Remote) Peer for details on terminating a remote peer database.
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Contact Oracle Cloud Support and file a service request or contact your support representative.
Parent topic: Use Backup-Based Disaster Recovery
Use the API
Provides links for details on using API operations to manage Backup-Based Disaster Recovery.
For information about using the API and signing requests, see REST APIs and Security Credentials.
For information about SDKs, see Software Development Kits and Command Line Interface.
Use these API operations to manage Disaster Recovery:
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To enable or disable Backup-Based Disaster Recovery, use UpdateAutonomousDatabase.
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To initiate a manual failover operation, use FailOverAutonomousDatabase.
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To initiate a switchover operation, use SwitchOverAutonomousDatabase.
Use these Terraform APIs to manage Autonomous Database resources:
For information about Terraform, see Terraform Provider and for information about Terraform APIs, see Data Source: oci_database_autonomous_database.
Parent topic: Use Backup-Based Disaster Recovery
Backup-Based Disaster Recovery Events
You can use Oracle Cloud Infrastructure events to respond when Autonomous Database changes its state due to a Backup-Based Disaster Recovery related event.
Autonomous Database events include the following:
- Begin manual failover
- End manual failover with failover result of success or failure.
- Begin switchover
- End switchover with switchover result of success or failure.
Based on events you can perform actions or send notifications. See Events and Notifications for a Standby Database for more information on using events and producing notifications.
Parent topic: Use Backup-Based Disaster Recovery