You can create backups of your web GIS and restore the most recent backup in the event of a failure or corruption. This allows you to recover the portal items, services, and data that existed at the time you created the backup.
Restoring backups to recover your deployment is a good option if your users will accept some amount of downtime and possible data loss, and your organization does not have the infrastructure or resources to devote to a highly available deployment.
Backups can also be kept even if you implement other disaster recovery strategies. They provide extra insurance that you can recover your deployment if your primary strategy fails. For example, if you maintain a replicated deployment and both your primary and replicated deployments fail at the same time (perhaps they were running on servers in the same building and the building loses power or there's an electrical surge that wipes out both servers), you still have a backup to which you can resort.
What's included in the backup?
Use the webgisdr utility to export backup files of the following components of your web GIS:
- Your portal items and settings
- GIS services and settings
- If using ArcGIS Data Store, your managed database (relational data store) and hosted scene layer cache databases (tile cache data store)
How often should I back up my web GIS?
The more frequently you create backups, the less data loss you incur if your primary deployment fails. However, it is not practical (or, often, even possible) to do continual backups. Keep the following in mind when deciding how frequently to create backups of your web GIS:
- Each backup takes time to create. The amount of time it takes increases as the amount and size of your content increases.
- Backup creation is a network-intensive process and could affect network performance.
- Even though backup files are compressed, they still take storage space. You have to maintain enough space in your secure backup location to store your web GIS backups.