Backup Scheduling, Retention, and On-Demand Snapshots

Change the Backup Policy Time

Configure the Backup Policy

Each row in the Backup Policy Frequency and Retention table represents a backup policy item. Configure the policy items and, optionally, add new policy items to configure a new backup policy.

To specify a backup policy item using the Atlas UI:

1. Select the frequency unit from Frequency Unit for a policy item.

   Alternatively, click Add Frequency Unit to add a new policy item to the backup policy.

   Note

   You cannot specify multiple Hourly and Daily backup policy items.

2. Select the frequency for the frequency unit from Every.

   Note

   If you delete an existing backup frequency unit, the snapshots for which the frequency was specified remain intact until they expire or you delete them.

3. Specify the retention time for the policy item in Retention Time and the units for the retention time from the list to the right.

   Note

   Atlas requires that the value specified for Retention Time for items that are less frequent is equal to or larger than the value specified for items that are more frequent. For example, if the hourly policy item specifies a retention of two days or greater, the retention for the weekly snapshot must be two weeks or greater.

   You can't configure a restore window that is longer than the Hourly Snapshot Retention Time.

4. (Optional) To apply the retention changes in the updated backup policy to snapshots that Atlas took previously, check Apply policy retention changes to existing snapshots.

   Note

   This option affects only snapshots created by the updated policy items and whose retention has not been updated individually with the Modify Cloud Backup Backup Policy API.

5. Click Save Changes.

Configure the Restore Window

You can replay the oplog to restore a cluster from any point in time within a specified restore window.

To specify the restore window duration, select how long you want Atlas to retain the oplog for point-in-time restores from the Restore Window list.

You can't configure a restore window that is longer than the Hourly Snapshot Retention Time.

Configure Atlas to Automatically Copy Snapshots to Other Regions

You can configure Atlas to automatically create copies of your snapshots and oplogs and store them in other regions. With snapshots distributed across regions, you can still restore your cluster if the primary region goes down, enhancing your disaster recovery capabilities to bring them in line with internal or regulatory requirements. Additionally, you can perform direct attach restores rather than slower streaming restores for clusters based in the same project and region where you store copies. This reduces system recovery time.

If you need to restore your cluster, Atlas decides whether to use the original snapshot or a copied snapshot for optimal restore speeds. Atlas might use copied snapshots if you are restoring a cluster in the same region as a snapshot copy, including multi-region clusters if the snapshots were copied to every cluster region. Additionally, if the original snapshot becomes unavailable due to a regional outage within your cloud provider, Atlas uses a copy in the nearest region to enable restores regardless of the cloud region outage.

You can use copied oplogs to perform continuous cloud backup from secondary regions in the event the primary region of your cluster goes down.

To configure automatic snapshot distribution in other regions:

1. Navigate to the Backup Policy tab. In the Additional Backup Copies section, click the arrow button to expand the pane.

2. Toggle Copy to other regions on. You will see a table of distribution policies pre-populated with the cluster's current regions.

   Note

   For a global cluster, you can enable or disable this setting independently for each zone.

3. In the Copy to other regions table, click Choose a region in the Region column of the row under your current region and select the region to distribute snapshots to.

   Note

   You can select regions only for the same cloud provider as the primary region. For example, if your cluster is in the AWS us-east-1 region, you can distribute snapshots only to other AWS regions supported by Atlas. For global clusters, each zone may have nodes in multiple cloud providers. When you select regions in which to store copied snapshots, you can select only regions in the same cloud provider as the zone's primary region.

4. In the Snapshots column, click the arrow to view the available snapshot policies for the cluster. Atlas displays options based on the backup policies for the cluster.

   For example, if you set the cluster with a Daily backup policy of taking daily 5:00 PM snapshots, checking Daily in the Snapshots column enables snapshot distribution of daily 5:00 PM snapshots. You can't set the snapshot distribution policy to a different frequency or timing than its underlying backup policy.

   You can enable or disable any combination of the available policies on a region-by-region basis.

   Example

   The following table describes the snapshot distribution policy for a cluster with enabled storage nodes in the AWS regions us-east-2, us-west-1, and us-west-2:

   Region	Hourly	Daily	Weekly	Monthly	On Demand	Point-in-Time
   us-east-1 (Original)	Every 6 hours	Every 2 days	Every Sunday	Last day of the month	Yes	Yes
   us-east-2 (Copy)	Disabled	Disabled	Enabled	Enabled	Disabled	No
   us-west-1 (Copy)	Enabled	Enabled	Enabled	Enabled	Enabled	Yes
   us-west-2 (Copy)	Enabled	Enabled	Disabled	Disabled	Enabled	Yes

5. If you enabled Continuous Cloud Backup for the cluster, you can enable oplog distribution for each additional region. If you disabled Continuous Cloud Backup for the cluster, you can't enable oplog distribution for additional regions.

To delete a policy for snapshot distribution to other regions:

1. In the Action column, click .

2. In the dialog box, select either Keep all snapshots in this region or Delete all snapshots in this region, and click Confirm. If you choose to keep snapshots in a disabled region, the snapshots persist until their scheduled expiration date.

Alternatively, to disable all snapshot distribution policies within a single-region cluster or within a global cluster zone, click the Copy to other regions toggle. As with deleting an individual policy, you can choose to keep or delete all copied snapshots for that cluster or zone.

Delete a Backup Snapshot

To delete all copies of a snapshot without deleting its distribution policy, delete the snapshot from its original region using one of the following methods:

Deleting the original snapshot by any of these methods will propagate the deletion to all copies of that snapshot.

View Backup Snapshots

By default, Atlas displays both on-demand and policy-based snapshots. To view only policy-based snapshots:

1. Click Policy under View Snapshots by.

   Alternatively, click On-demand to display only snapshots taken by clicking Take Snapshot Now.

Snapshots taken according to the backup policy display the frequency of the policy item that generated the snapshot in the Frequency column: Monthly, Weekly, Daily, or Hourly.

You can change a zone's name in the Atlas UI. If you rename a zone, old snapshots' tooltip zone names aren't renamed.

Take On-Demand Snapshots

Atlas takes on-demand snapshots immediately, unlike scheduled snapshots which occur at regular intervals. If there is already an on-demand snapshot with a status of queued or inProgress, you must wait until Atlas has completed the on-demand snapshot before taking another. If there is already a scheduled snapshot with a status of queued or inProgress, you may queue an on-demand snapshot. You must have the Organization Owner or Project Owner role to successfully call this endpoint.