Implementing Backup Strategies

Overview

Design and implement backup strategies for databases, file systems, and cloud resources using tools like tar, rsync, pg_dump, mysqldump, AWS S3, and cloud-native snapshot APIs. Covers full, incremental, and differential backup schemes with retention policies, encryption, and automated verification.

Prerequisites

• tar, rsync, or restic installed for file-level backups
• Database client tools (pg_dump, mysqldump, mongodump) for database backups
• AWS CLI configured with S3 write permissions (or equivalent GCP/Azure storage access)
• Sufficient storage capacity at backup destination (local, NFS, or object storage)
• Cron or systemd timer access for scheduling automated backups
• GPG or OpenSSL for backup encryption at rest

Instructions

1. Inventory all data sources requiring backup: databases, application data directories, configuration files, secrets/certificates
2. Classify data by RPO (Recovery Point Objective) and RTO (Recovery Time Objective) requirements
3. Select backup strategy per data class: full daily + incremental hourly for databases, snapshot-based for block storage, rsync for file systems