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The attached warning taken from Acumatica user documentation has me concerned. It says "... we do not recommend that you use snapshots to back up data." Is this unnecessarily cautious or valid? What do most people do? If you are sure all users are out of a Tenant, do you need to go into Maintenance Mode or will the snapshot be safe to use because all users are out. Again, what do most people do?
We got a quote for the Acumatica backup services, but it seems unnecessarily expensive. What can we expect from Acumatica in the event we need to restore to a prior point in time should we find a major problem in our data?
Thanks so much for providing this forum.
Brenda
Are you On-Prem? If so, I would recommend using SQL Server backups because they can be scheduled and have much more robust functionality. Snapshots are fine for manual back/restore scenarios, but are not an automated backup solution.
Hi,
I'm on on-prem, are there any recovery guidelines for SQL backups? Let's say we face complete failure and all we have is the SQL database backup?
@gproxy I've seen different SQL Database Administrators (DBAs) have different opinions. I'm sure it's one of those topics of vigorous debate during SQL Saturdays (click here). I'm not a DBA, but as I understand it, it comes down to how often you're taking a full backup vs. relying on the transaction logs. It's really a SQL Server thing though, not an Acumatica thing.
We're not On-Prem. So, given we should rely on snapshots, I have a couple more questions. I understand you can go into maintenance mode to ensure a "Safe" snapshot. You can schedule an update which puts you in maintenance mode. However, other users with Admin rights can still get into Acumatica while you are in maintenance mode. If you turn on maintenance mode, what happens to non-admin user sessions that might be in the middle of some process such as printing checks. Does Acumatica let the process finish and then force a logoff. How does the person doing the maintenance and creating the snapshot know when it is really safe to do the maintenance. Also, if admin users can hop in and do work anyway, is it really "Safe"?
Is the primary purpose of maintenance mode and "Safe" Snapshots to ensure that the backup/snapshot is not made in the middle of a process that updates the database? If that's the case, are you safe just confirming that no users are online (and will stay out for the duration of the making of the snapshot) in the tenant having the snapshot taken?
Thank you for your input.
Brenda
Hi Brenda,
Snapshots should be used only as an option for people who are implementing the software in my opinion. Before the introduction of maintenance mode we would often get a corrupt database due to people taking and restoring snapshots whilst other users or automated processes where working in the solution.
Many people forget how open the database is, you have data connected through API, the mobile app, the MS outlook addin, the MS Exchange synchronization schedules and then you have automated processes and reporting on top.
Due to the number of corruptions we received, I did a webinar to showcase how easy it was to corrupt the database with a simple process of 200 sales invoices being released whilst doing the snapshot. After that webinar we did not have anymore corruptions due to snapshots.
Also the snapshot design is flawed, especially for large databases as it simply replicates the data and stores it in the same tables with a unique company id to be retrieved later. This could potentially slow down your usage of the software. I also believe within the web.config file there is a limitation on the file size as well.
As you are hosted your hosted provider should already have a robust database backup procedure in place for you.
Is it possible to corrupt the database just by taking a snapshot and exporting it? It's the import that causes the issues, correct?
Thanks!
-Matt
I agree with Carl. If you aren't on-prem, then backups/restores are one of the primary functions of your hosting provider. If they aren't doing a good job, then maybe find another hosting provider.
Carl has more experience here than me, but I think the corruption problem that could happen is caused during the Snapshot process. If a process is in the middle of updating multiple tables and the Snapshop process is running through and grabbing the data from each of those tables, it might grab the data from one table before the process updates it and another table after the process updates it.
I think Maintenance Mode only kicks out a non-Admin user after a screen refresh (not 100% sure on this) so I think it's still possible to have someone in the middle of a process still.
I know this is an old post but in case someone else searches this topic, snapshot can also cause a loss of data. Acumatica does not backup usr fields that have been added to the database when taking a snapshot. You will get the new field in the database when you publish your customizations, but no data will be populated when the snapshot is restored. Recently found this out while moving a client from PCS to SaaS and did not have access to database.