Point-in-time recovery (PITR)

Recovering through the UI

After your deployment's first backup is complete, the point-in-time recovery option will display in the UI. To initiate a PITR, enter the time that you want to restore back to in Coordinated Universal Time.

The point-in-time-recovery timestamp must be formatted as follows: %Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ.

To restore to the most recent available time, select that option. Clicking Restore brings up the options for your recovery. Enter a name, select the version, region, and allocated resources for the new deployment. Click Recover to start the process.

If you use Key Protect and have a key, you must use the CLI to recover, and a command is provided for your convenience.

Recovery with the CLI

The Resource Controller supports provisioning of database deployments, and provisioning and restoring are the responsibility of the Resource Controller CLI. Use the resource service-instance-create command.

ibmcloud resource service-instance-create <INSTANCE_NAME> <SERVICE_ID> <SERVICE_PLAN_NAME> <REGION> -p '{"point_in_time_recovery_deployment_id":"DEPLOYMENT_ID", "point_in_time_recovery_time":"TIMESTAMP", "version":""}'

Available parameters are:

• instance_name(Required): The human-readable name of the new instance to be deployed, for example, new-mongo.
• service_id(Required): In this context this is databases-for-mongodb.
• service_plan_name(Required): standard or enterprise.
• region (Required): The IBM Cloud® region where the new database will be deployed, for example, eu-gb.
• point_in_time_recovery_deployment_id (Required): The source deployment's ID (also known as the CRN).
• point_in_time_recovery_time: The point in time to which the backup is restored to, in the format %Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ, for example, 2024-05-10T08:15:00Z. Leave this field blank to get the latest restorable point.
• version: The database version, for example, "6.0". Leave this field blank to use the latest, preferred version.
• key_protect_key: ID (CRN) of the Key Protect resource used. This field is optional, for BYOK (Bring Your Own Key) encryption.
• members_host_flavor: The instance host size that you want to deploy. If not supplied, the new instance will be created with the same RAM and CPU as the source instance. See this table for available values.

ibmcloud resource service-instance-create big-mongo-restore databases-for-mongodb enterprise eu-gb -p '{"point_in_time_recovery_deployment_id":"crn:v1:bluemix:public:databases-for-mongodb:eu-gb:a/f19c0f5eff94b69ae419xyz2345ra7a0ed:3c647ad1-b9a8-2233-a47e-668d8b83e79f::", "members_host_flavor":"b3c.4x16.encrypted", "point_in_time_recovery_time":"", "version":""}'

Recovery with the API

The Resource Controller supports provisioning of database deployments, and provisioning and restoring are the responsibility of the Resource Controller API. You need to complete the necessary steps to use the resource controller API before you can use it to restore from a backup.

After you have all the information, the create request is a POST to the /resource_instances endpoint.

curl -X POST \
  https://resource-controller.cloud.ibm.com/v2/resource_instances \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer <>' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
    -d '{
    "name": "<SERVICE_INSTANCE_NAME>",
    "target": "<REGION>",
    "resource_group": "<YOUR-RESOURCE-GROUP>",
    "resource_plan_id": "<SERVICE-ID>",
    "parameters": {
      "point_in_time_recovery_time":"<TIMESTAMP>",
      "point_in_time_recovery_deployment_id":"<DEPLOYMENT_ID>"
    }
  }'

The following fields are all required:

• name: The human-readable name of the new instance to be deployed, e.g. new-mongo.
• resource_group: The ID of the resource group, e.g. 5c49eabc12fgt65
• resource_plan_id: In this context this is databases-for-mongodb-enterprise
• target: The IBM Cloud region where the new database will be deployed, e.g. eu-gb. Cross region restores are supported, except for restoring a eu-de backup to another region.

Additionally, a parameters object can be supplied with the following fields:

• point_in_time_recovery_deployment_id: The source deployment's ID (also known as the CRN).
• point_in_time_recovery_time: The point in time to which the backup is restored to, in the format %Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ, for example, 2024-05-10T08:15:00Z. Leave this field blank to get the latest restorable point.
• version: The database version, for example, "6.0". Leave this field blank to use the latest, preferred version.
• key_protect_key: ID (CRN) of the Key Protect resource used. This field is optional, for BYOK (Bring Your Own Key) encryption.
• members_host_flavor: The instance host size that you want to deploy. If not supplied, the new instance will be created with the same RAM and CPU as the source instance. See the table for available values.

The point-in-time-recovery timestamp must be formatted as follows: %Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ.

Restoring a backup with Terraform

Before restoring, ensure that your point_in_time_recovery_time is no older than one week. If the timestamp is any older than 7 days, down to the second, validation fails.

Use the ibm_database_point_in_time_recovery data source to restore your database instance with point_in_time_recovery.

The point-in-time-recovery timestamp must be formatted as follows: %Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ.

Your Terraform script looks like this.

terraform {
  required_providers {
     ibm = {
       version = "1.44.3"
       source  = "IBM-Cloud/ibm"
    }
  }
}

variable "ibmcloud_api_key" {
  description = "<Enter your IBM Cloud API Key>"
}

provider "ibm" {
  region = "us-south"
  ibmcloud_api_key = var.ibmcloud_api_key
}

data "ibm_resource_group" "default_group" {
  is_default = true
}

resource "ibm_database" "mongodb_enterprise" {
  resource_group_id = data.ibm_resource_group.default_group.id
  name              = "testing-mongodb-pitr"
  service           = "databases-for-mongodb"
  plan              = "enterprise"
  location          = "us-south"

  point_in_time_recovery_deployment_id = "<crn>"
  point_in_time_recovery_time = "2022-09-14T14:47:45Z"

}

The above will restore to a new database with the same host size and disk size as the source. If you want to modify the host size or disk size of your deployment, refer to the Terraform documentation for the right formatting.

Point-in-time recovery (PITR) offline restore through the UI

Initiate an Offline Restore through the IBM Cloud Dashboard just as you would for a standard PITR. Choose the third Point-in-time recovery option.

Point-in-time recovery (PITR) offline restore through the CLI

Initiate an Offline Restore through the IBM Cloud CLI using a command like:

ibmcloud resource service-instance-create big-mongo-restore databases-for-mongodb enterprise eu-gb -p '{"point_in_time_recovery_deployment_id":"crn:v1:bluemix:public:databases-for-mongodb:eu-gb:a/f19c0f5eff94b69ae419xyz2345ra7a0ed:3c647ad1-b9a8-2233-a47e-668d8b83e79f::", "members_host_flavor":"b3c.4x16.encrypted", "point_in_time_recovery_time":"", "version":"", "offline_restore": true}'

Specify the following parameters:

• point_in_time_recovery_deployment_id - This is the source CRN.
• point_in_time_recovery_time - Leave this blank, "".
• offline_restore - Set this value to true.

The command output looks like:

Creating service instance <INSTANCE_NAME> in resource group Default of account <ACCOUNT> as <USER>...
OK
Service instance <INSTANCE_NAME> was created.

Name:                <INSTANCE_NAME>
ID:                  crn:v1:bluemix:public:databases-for-mongodb:eu-gb:a/f19c0f5eff94b69ae419xyz2345ra7a0ed:3c647ad1-b9a8-2233-a47e-668d8b83e79f::
GUID:                3c647ad1-b9a8-2233-a47e-668d8b83e79f
Location:            <LOCATION>
State:               provisioning
Type:                service_instance
Sub Type:            Public
Service Endpoints:   public
Allow Cleanup:       false
Locked:              false
Created at:          2023-08-03T09:36:37Z
Updated at:          2023-08-03T09:36:41Z
Last Operation:
                     Status    create in progress
                     Message   Started create instance operation

The point-in-time-recovery timestamp must be formatted as follows: %Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ.

Point-in-time recovery (PITR) offline restore through the API

The Resource Controller supports provisioning of database deployments, and provisioning and restoring are the responsibility of the Resource Controller API. Complete the necessary steps to use the resource controller API before using it to restore from a backup.

After you have all the information, the create request is a POST to the /resource_instances that will look like:

curl -X POST \
  https://resource-controller.cloud.ibm.com/v2/resource_instances \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer <>' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
    -d '{
    "name": "<SERVICE_INSTANCE_NAME>",
    "target": "<REGION>",
    "resource_group": "<YOUR-RESOURCE-GROUP-ID>",
    "resource_plan_id": "<SERVICE-ID>",
    "parameters": {
      "point_in_time_recovery_time":"<TIMESTAMP>",
      "point_in_time_recovery_deployment_id":"<DEPLOYMENT_ID>",
      "offline_restore": true
    }
  }'

Specify the following parameters:

• point_in_time_recovery_deployment_id - This is the source CRN.
• point_in_time_recovery_time - Leave this blank, "".
• offline_restore - Set this value to true.

The point-in-time-recovery timestamp must be formatted as follows: %Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ.