Cloud SQL backups overview

Cloud SQL lets you back up your instances on-demand, or automatically using a backup schedule. Backup configurations available for your instance depend on your instance's backup option . Cloud SQL backups are incremental and help you restore lost data to your Cloud SQL instance. Backups are also encrypted by default using Google-managed or Customer-Managed Encryption keys (CMEK). With backups, you can:

• Restore your instance to a previous state if your instance is facing an issue.
• Set up Disaster Recovery (DR) by creating a new instance using a backup in a different region or zone.
• Create multiple instances using backups to help in development, testing, and migration.

You can retain these backups by defining your instance's backup retention settings. Retention settings can differ based on your instance's Cloud SQL edition and backup option . Additionally, you can also retain backups after your instance is deleted to allow you to restore the instance after deletion.

Backup options

Cloud SQL offers two backup service options to manage your instance's backups:

• Enhanced backups : backups are managed and stored in a centralized backup management project that leverages the Backup and DR Service, and provides enforced retention, granular scheduling, and monitoring.
• Standard backups : backups are created, managed, and stored in the same project as your Cloud SQL instances. This is the existing Cloud SQL backup offering and is now called standard backups.

You must select a backup option for each instance. For more information about each backup option and its features, see Choose your backup option .

Backup request types

You can take on-demand, automated, or final backups for your Cloud SQL instances. The configuration available for these backups depend on your instance's selected backup option .

On-demand backups

On-demand backups are backups that can be created at any time . These are useful if you are about to perform a risky operation on your database, or if you need a backup and don't want to wait for the backup window. You can create on-demand backups for any instance, whether the instance has automatic backups enabled or not.

Automated backups

Automated backups are taken on a scheduled cadence, such as hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly, while your instance is running. The scheduled cadence depends on the backup option you choose for your instance and the cadence you define in the backup configuration for the selected backup option. The backup starts during the backup window.

One additional automated backup is taken after your instance is stopped to safeguard all changes prior to the instance stopping. Automated backup retention depends on the configured retention policy in the chosen backup option for your instance. It's recommended that you schedule your backups when your instance has less activity, if possible.

It's also recommended that you don't manually delete any automated backups because they're needed to support point-in-time recovery .

To configure your instance's automated backups, see Configure automated backups .

Final backup

Final backups let you take a backup of your Cloud SQL instance before you delete the instance. This is useful to retain the instance data after you delete the instance. You can use the final backup to either create a new instance, or to restore to an existing instance. For more information about accessing and viewing details about your final backup, see View a list of final backups .

You can set your instance to take a final backup automatically when you delete your instance by enabling the final backup instance setting for your instance. You can also set the final backup retention period when you enable final backups for your instance. If you don't enable final backups for your instance, then you can also take a final backup when you delete your instance . Final backups are only available for primary instances and aren't supported for replicas. You can also set an Cloud SQL custom organization policy to take a final back at instance deletion for all instances in your organization and set a standard retention period. For more information, see Example custom organization policies for common use cases .

By default, Cloud SQL retains the final backup for 30 days. However, you can customize how long Cloud SQL retains the backup. This can range from 1 day to 365 days for standard backups, or 1 day to 99 years for enhanced backups. You can then restore the instance from the backup as long as it's available. Final backups are charged similar to other backups for the number of days retained.

For more information about how to enable final backups for your new or existing instances using the standard backups option, see Configure final backups . For enhanced backups, final backups are managed by the associated backup plan .

To manage a final backup after your instance is deleted, see Manage backups for deleted instances .

Backup retention

Backup retention is defined by the backup request type and the backup option you select for your instance. For automated backups, retention can range from 1 day to 99 years , depending on your instance's backup option. For on-demand backups, backups are stored indefinitely until the backup is deleted. For more information about backup retention related to your instance's backup option, see Choose your backup option .

Retain backups after instance deletion

Retained backups are backups that are retained by Cloud SQL after an instance is deleted. These backups consist of on-demand backups and automated backups created when the instance was live. When you delete an instance, these backups become independent of your instance and are stored at the project level. Retained backups are different from final backups , which are the last backups taken at time of instance deletion.

You can update the description of these backups to make it easier to manage them in your Google Cloud project. Retained backups can be restored to a new or existing Cloud SQL instance at any time.

For these backups, the retention period is defined by the type of backup it is and can't be changed after the instance is deleted. For standard backups, on-demand backups are kept indefinitely until either the backup is manually deleted, or the project containing the backup is deleted. For enhanced backups, on-demand backups are kept based on the selected retention rule. Automated backups are deleted on a rolling basis, one backup per day, after the instance is deleted. The rolling period is defined based on the retention settings of the instance prior to deletion, which can range from 1 day to 99 years, depending on your instance's selected backup option . For example, if your instance's automated backup retention setting was set to 7, then the latest automated backup is deleted 7 days after the instance deletion.

Retained backups can be deleted manually at any time. However, when you delete a retained backup, the deleted backup can't be recovered.

For standard backups, since instance names can be used after an instance is deleted in Cloud SQL, retained backups are stored in your Google Cloud project with a field called instance_deletion_time . This field lets you identify whether a particular backup belongs to a live or deleted instance. You can also update the description of a backup to make it easier to manage them.

For more information about how to enable retained backups for your new or existing instances using the standard backups option, see Configure retained backups . For enhanced backups, retained backups are managed by the associated backup plan .

To manage a retained backup after your instance is deleted, see Manage backups for deleted instances .

Recovery backups

Cloud SQL attempts to retain at least one last daily backup of every active instance, if there are no good backups available as part of the automated backup policy. You can use this backup for recovery purposes by contacting Google Cloud Customer Care .

Backup and data integrity checks

Cloud SQL automatically performs background database integrity checks to identify any potential data integrity issues. The integrity check is done as an offline process by restoring a sampling of customer initiated backups or recovery backups .

Backups for replicas

Backups aren't available for replica instances. Since replica instances are copies of primary instances, backups are maintained with the primary instance. If a replica instance is promoted to a standalone instance due to a failover or switchover, then the instance is enabled for backups and would require its own backup configuration. Promoted replicas don't inherhit the primary instance backup configurations and can't access the primary instance's backups.

Backups versus exports

Backups are managed by Cloud SQL according to retention policies, and are stored separately from the Cloud SQL instance. Cloud SQL backups differ from an export uploaded to Cloud Storage, where you manage the lifecycle. Backups encompass the entire disk of the instance. Exports can select specific contents.

Backup and restore operations can't be used to upgrade a database to a later version. You can only restore from a backup to an instance with the same database version as when the backup was taken.

To upgrade to a later version, consider using the Database Migration Service or exporting and then importing your database to a new Cloud SQL instance.

Backup size

All Cloud SQL backups, except the first one, are incremental. They contain only data that changed after the previous backup was taken. Your oldest backup is a similar size to your database, but the sizes of subsequent backups depend on the rate of change of your data. When the oldest backup is deleted, the size of the next oldest backup increases to become a full backup and is adjusted to capture the difference between the backups. Each incremental backup following is also updated to match the new full backup.

You can check the size of an individual backup . The backup size represents the billable size for each backup.

Troubleshooting

What's next

• Choose a backup option for your Cloud SQL instance.
• Learn more about restoring .
• Restore from a backup