Backups

Introduction

Backup snapshots for apps running in Mendix Cloud are automatically created every night, week, and month. They can also be created on demand, as described in the Backups section, below.

Backup snapshots contain both the database and file documents referred to in the database.

Creation and Retention Schedules

Backups are created and retained as follows:

Each backup is automatically deleted when its retention period is over, but you can always manually delete it before then. By default, backups are retained for exactly the specified period; for example, a weekly backup created at 3:18 on December 3 expires at 3:18 on March 3. If you want to keep a backup for longer than scheduled, you can download the backup to your computer.

Nightly Backups

The Start Time of nightly backups in UTC is shown below. The Local Time indicates the time at the regional data center; this may vary if Summer Time or other adjustments are in place.

The Estimated Duration indicates the period during which backups are expected to be taken from apps in that region. Your app can be backed up at any time during this period; the exact period during which backups are taken can change due to factors at the data center that are outside Mendix’s control.

Nightly backups start once an app has been successfully deployed to and started in the environment.

If a nightly backup fails, it is retried two more times.

Notes on Retention

The monthly backup occurs on the first Sunday of the month. If the first nightly backup takes place after the first Sunday in the month, then there is no monthly backup retained for that month. In this case, you can download a copy of a nightly or weekly backup if you need to retain a backup for longer than three months.

Backups

The Backups page presents options for managing your backups. These are described below.

Create Backup

Clicking Create Backup automatically generates a backup snapshot from your application data. For more information, see Creating a Backup.

Upload Backup

To upload a backup, click Upload Backup and then select the backup archive you want to upload. For information on downloading backup archives, see Download Backup, below.

You can upload archives containing the following:

• Full Snapshot
• Database Only

Uploading a backup creates a new backup item in your backup list. You can then restore the new backup item via the regular restore process (as described in Restore Backup, below). This ensures less downtime for your application.

Download Backup

To download a backup, click More Options () > Download on the backup you want to download.

You can download a backup archive containing one of the following:

• Full Snapshot
• Database Only
• Files Only

For more information, see the Downloading a Backup page.

Restore Backup

To restore a backup, click More Options () > Restore on the backup you want to restore.

You can choose the destination environment to which you want to restore the backup snapshot. This allows you to, for example, restore a production environment backup to an acceptance environment.

If you restore a backup snapshot that was originally deployed with an older Mendix version, you get a warning. You can still restore the data, but you will have to deploy the older model later on.

For more information, see the Restoring a Backup page.

Details

You can view details of a backup by clicking More Options () and then Details. You will see the following details:

Data Location

Application data, including files and backups, is always replicated by default to a secondary region, separate from the primary region, for security and compliance reasons. Each individual backup is immutable; in other words, once it has been written to Mendix’s storage location, it can no longer be modified or overwritten.

Where possible, application data is replicated to a secondary region in the same political region. This is not possible in regions where there is only one region available in the political region, which has the following consequences:

• Application data in the Bahrain region, including backups, is replicated to the Mumbai region
• Application data in the Cape Town region, including backups, is replicated to the Frankfurt region
• Application data in the Jakarta region, including backups, is replicated to the Singapore region
• Application data in the São Paulo region, including backups, is replicated to the N. Virginia region
• Application data in the Seoul region, including backups, is replicated to the Singapore region
• Application data in the Singapore region, including backups, is replicated to the Sydney region
• Application data in the UAE region, including backups, is replicated to the Mumbai region

We will change the replication region for these regions if a new region is opened in the political region.

Application Data Replication

If you have a Premium platform subscription, you can opt out of application data replication for your licensed applications on Mendix Cloud. In that case, application data of licensed apps will not be replicated to a secondary region for any of your applications. Changing the application data replication setting only affects licensed applications and environments that have not yet been provisioned. This setting does not apply to applications with a Basic plan.

Limitations

Performance

Mendix Cloud backups that contain a very large number of files (that is, greater than about 50,000) experience slow performance for all backup operations (create, download, restore, and upload). This is because of the inherent overhead associated with each file. As the number of files increases, the overhead becomes quite significant and can add several hours to the duration.

Customizations

Customization of the databases of apps in Mendix Cloud is not supported. This includes, but is not limited to, installing extensions and enabling or disabling specific features. Mendix does not support uploading and restoring backups of customized databases to Mendix Cloud. If you attempt to restore a backup of a customized database, the restore will likely fail. Note that customizing the database of an app in Mendix Cloud breaks the support and SLA for the app.

Troubleshooting

This section lists possible solutions to known issues.

Snapshot Size Display

The Snapshot Size field sometimes does not display the backup size correctly. The backup size is shown as 0.0 MB.

Cause

This issue happens when you upload a database backup only.

Solution

Proceed with the backup import. If required, verify the size of the snapshot by checking locally.

Read More

• Creating a Backup
• Downloading a Backup
• Restoring a Backup
• Restoring a Backup Locally