PostgreSQL's strong presence in the relational database landscape continues to grow, positioning it alongside top contenders like Oracle and MySQL. Its adaptability to various platforms, extensive support for multiple programming languages and applications, and a vibrant open-source community make it a favorite among developers.
But despite its popularity, PostgreSQL's backup and recovery processes remain challenging for administrators and database administrators (DBAs). Without a unified management solution, teams need specialized skills to handle operations at key stages:
Day 0 - Setup
Day 1 - Scheduled backups and recovery
Day 2 - Compliance and monitoring
Extended backup times can negatively affect recovery point objectives (RPOs) and recovery time objectives (RTOs), putting business continuity at risk for data loss or cyber incidents.
To address this challenge, Rubrik’s protection workflow for PostgreSQL can streamline operations from Day 0 and beyond. Here’s how.
Rubrik’s Data Protection Solution for PostgreSQL
Rubrik Security Cloud (RSC) is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform designed from the ground up to secure, monitor, and recover data across various environments (including enterprise systems, cloud platforms, and SaaS applications). Rubrik provides multiple data protection and security solutions, offering enterprise-level protection for databases, virtual machines (VMs), physical machines, and more. Its features include air-gapped, immutable, and access-controlled backups to enhance data security.
Rubrik’s native PostgreSQL database protection is similar to the backup and recovery protection offered for MongoDB, Oracle, MS SQL, SAP HANA, IBM Db2, and other workloads, consisting of the following three key components:
Rubrik Security Cloud (RSC)
A Rubrik Secure Vault cluster connected to Rubrik Security Cloud
The PostgreSQL cluster to be protected
Together, these elements streamline PostgreSQL database management from setup through daily operations and compliance. Let’s analyze the customer workflows to understand the overall architecture and simplify your data protection strategy.
Three Key Data Protection Workflows
Here are detailed instructions for deploying Rubrik Security Cloud for three key stages of a PostgreSQL deployment.
Day 0- Setup
Install Rubrik Backup Service (RBS)
To initiate protection, install the Rubrik Backup Service (RBS) on your PostgreSQL hosts using either RPM or DEB packages. This installation establishes a secure connection between the Rubrik Secure Vault and the Linux host. You can create the download links from the RSC. Once the installation is complete, RBS will be configured automatically.
Add Hosts & Cluster to RSC
Next, administrators use the add host workflow to include the PostgreSQL database host in RSC.
The administrator can add the PostgreSQL database cluster to RSC, which will automatically discover the underlying databases. Rubrik follows a two-step process: first, it gathers metadata using the control plane flow, and then it utilizes this information to add the PostgreSQL cluster and explore the databases.
Day 1: Scheduled backups and recovery
Assigning Rubrik Global Policy
After discovery, administrators can utilize the Rubrik Global SLA policy engine to create and assign SLA Policies from RSC. This automates protection frequency and retention for database and Write Ahead Log (WAL) file backups, essentially managing the entire data life cycle. Rubrik utilizes the data path to store PostgreSQL database data in its immutable file system and retrieves backups for recovery purposes. The data path uses the NFSv3 protocol to write directly to an immutable file system to store PostgreSQL database backups.
Communication between the Rubrik Secure Vault and RSC via the control path is secured using the TLS 1.2 protocol. Additionally, communication from the Rubrik Secure Vault to PostgreSQL hosts through RBS using the Thrift protocol. The WAL file backups also occur using RBS over the Thrift protocol.
On-Demand Backup
Rubrik's On-Demand Snapshots for PostgreSQL databases offer both instant and manual backup options, allowing you to capture the exact state of your data at any moment.
This is especially valuable for situations that require immediate data protection: for example, before making significant system changes, testing new updates, or responding to urgent threats. The snapshots are stored according to the same retention policies as scheduled snapshots, and they can be quickly restored, ensuring fast recovery and continuous data protection.
Recovery
When your business-critical applications face an outage, knowing how to respond effectively is essential. Rubrik offers step-by-step guided recovery workflows that enable you to restore your vital data from a point-in-time database copy. This capability ensures you can recover in the event of a disaster. With recovery point objectives (RPOs) of up to five minutes, you can roll back and recover to any moment, either on the original host or on a different one.
You can also use RSC GraphQL APIs to script and automate backup and recovery processes, streamlining operations without the need to access the user interface.
Day 2 and Beyond: Compliance and monitoring
Customizable Reports
The reports in RSC provide valuable insights into resource usage and related activities. The available report templates cover various aspects, including infrastructure attributes, object capacity, compliance, protection information, events, details of protection and recovery tasks, SLA audits, object audits, backup task summaries, indexing status, and QAuth roles. You can use these reports to view the Rubrik infrastructure comprehensively, enabling you to monitor and manage data protection and recovery processes effectively.
Simplify and Secure: Benefits of Rubrik Data Protection for PostgreSQL
Rubrik simplifies database management, backup, and recovery workflows from day zero and beyond by offering a comprehensive solution that provides numerous benefits:
Keep Databases Secure and Available
Airgapped and Immutable Backups: Create tamper-proof PostgreSQL backups immune to alteration or deletion, providing a robust layer of data protection.
Enhanced Security Measures: Safeguard PostgreSQL databases against unauthorized access and insider threats; enforce multi-factor authentication; employ least-privilege access control; scale protection across various environments.
Automate Database Protection
Automated Database Discovery: Simplify database management by automatically identifying and cataloging PostgreSQL databases across your environment. This ensures comprehensive coverage without the need for manual tracking.
Policy-Driven Protection: Create and enforce global SLA policies to ensure consistent compliance and protection. Automatically apply these policies to newly discovered databases while managing data replication and archiving requirements.
Backup and Access Data Faster
Efficient Backup Strategy: Rubrik's file-level incremental backups eliminate the need for repeated full backups, reducing backup times.
Enhanced Data Protection: Benefit from various backup options, including full, incremental, and WAL file backups. Continuous WAL file backups achieve ultra-low RPOs of 5 minutes, ensuring minimal data loss in critical situations.
Simplify Complexity of Data Protection
Comprehensive Database Protection: Safeguard your entire PostgreSQL environment on-premises and for IaaS, along with other databases such as Oracle, SAP HANA, Db2, and more, using a unified solution to simplify operations and reduce complexity.
Enhanced Reporting and Monitoring: Easily monitor and report on SLA compliance, ensuring your PostgreSQL data meets protection objectives. Access comprehensive summaries of backup jobs to quickly identify and address any protection gaps.
Recover What You Need, When You Need It
Point-in-Time Recovery: Benefit from up to 5-minute RPOs for point-in-time recovery, allowing you to roll back to any moment, undo unwanted changes, recover from data corruption, and even restore to a different host without losing recent updates.
Guided DBA-Driven Restores: Empower your database administrators with guided, step-by-step recovery workflows to ensure accurate restores while maintaining complete control.
Getting started is easy if you are ready to protect your PostgreSQL data! Check out our hands-on lab for PostgreSQL Database and learn how to take the first step.