HeatWave Service supports full and incremental backup types. These backups can be created manually, automatically, when you delete a DB system, or by an operator. Backups can be moved to another compartment or copied to another region. You can restore these backups to a new DB system.

Backup Types

HeatWave Service supports the following backup types:

• Full backup: Backs up all data contained in the DB system. In some cases, the full backup size is larger than the data volume size due to block volume backups. See Volume Backup Size.
• Incremental backup: Backs up only the data that was added or changed since the last full or incremental backup. The first incremental backup is always a full backup.

For data recovery purposes, there is no functional difference between an incremental backup and a full backup. You can restore data from any of your incremental or full backups. Both backup types enable you to restore full data to the point-in-time when the backup was taken. You don't need to keep the initial full backup or subsequent incremental backups in the backup chain and restore them in sequence, you only need to keep the backups taken for the times you care about.

When you delete an incremental or full backup, it is merged into the backup with active dependencies. The last incremental or full backup is deleted and not merged with any other backup as there are no active dependencies on the last backup. For example, lets assume you have 40 GB of data, and you create a full backup. Upon completion of the full backup, the backup size is 40 GB. If you then add an additional 4 GB of data, and create an incremental backup, the size of the incremental backup is 4 GB. Now if you delete the full backup, the incremental backup retains the full 44 GB necessary to restore the data. If you create a third incremental backup with a size of 1 GB, after the second incremental backup, and then delete the full backup, the third backup stays at a 1 GB size, and the second incremental backup size is updated to 44 GB.

Creation Types

Backups can be created in one of the following ways:

• Manual backup: You can create a manual backup by an action in the Console, or a request through the REST API. You can retain the manual backup for a minimum of 1 day and a maximum of 365 days. You can create a manual backup of an inactive DB system too. You cannot create a manual backup of an Always Free DB system. See Creating a Manual Backup.
  Note
  
  The manual backup can be a full or incremental backup.
• Automatic backup: The backup is created automatically at a time selected while creating the DB system. The default retention period is 7 days. You can define the retention period between 1 and 35 days. For Always Free DB systems, the retention period is 1 day, and it is not configurable. The automatic backup schedule backs up an inactive DB system too. When you delete a DB system, the automatic backups are deleted too. However, if you have selected Retains automatic backups in the Deletion plan tab, your automatic backups are retained. For a high availability DB system, the automatic backups are created on the primary instance.
  Note
  
  The first automatic backup is a full backup and all subsequent backups are incremental backups.
• Final backup: You can create a final backup before deleting the DB system by selecting the Require final backup option in the Deletion plan tab. See Advanced Option: Deletion Plan. The retention period of a final backup is 365 days. The final backup of an Always Free DB system has a shorter retention period of 7 days.
  Note
  
  The final backup is a full and manual backup.
• Operator backup: The MySQL Support team creates this backup to assist in investigating potential issues with your service. These backups are deleted automatically. You can delete these backups too but it is not recommended. These backups do not affect your service limits.
  Note
  
  The operator backup is a full backup.

Restore Options

You can restore data in either of the following ways:

• Point-in-time recovery: You can restore from an existing DB system to a new DB system at the latest available point-in-time or a specific point-in-time. See Point-In-Time Recovery.
  Note
  
  Point-in-time recovery is not supported on Always Free DB system.
• Restoring from a backup: You can restore from an existing backup to a new DB system in the same tenancy. See Restoring From a Backup.