I'm looking for tips on setting up backups for RDS on AWS. Recently, I came across a post regarding AWS Backup and I'm curious about your methods. Specifically, do you handle your entire backup scheduling through AWS Backup, or do you prefer the built-in point-in-time recovery (PITR) that RDS offers? Additionally, what best practices or rules of thumb do you recommend when configuring backups for RDS?
1 Answer
We've got a straightforward backup policy for our RDS databases. We set up automatic daily backups with a 7-day retention period. The snapshots are kept in the same AWS account, but we also run a daily cron job that creates another backup copy with a 3-day retention in a different AWS account just in case we lose access to the main one. I feel like we can handle a day’s data loss since we can restore some from the logs if necessary.
I really don’t get why companies want weeks of backups when, in a real crisis, they'll want the latest data instantly. Honestly, I suggest just going for the free 7-day backup, keeping encrypted copies in another account or region. Any longer than that just seems like wasting money on something you might never need.