How to find out when the last PROD backup was done for cloning purposes

[Floridalife]

From what i understand cloning uses the last valid backup as a source, how do i find out when that happened to be sure my clone request will use the latest version of my instance?

[Chuck Tomasi]

Hi Mathieu,

The following information below is found in   KB0547654 on HI server.

ServiceNow does full backups weekly and differential backups daily.

We keep 4 weekly backups and a rolling 6 days of differential backups (the 7th day of the week would be the full backup and, therefore, would not have a differential backup). All database servers are backed up independently: production (primary and standby) and non-production.

Backups for a specific instance do not run on a set schedule and the time of backup is not guaranteed. The system finds the best time for backups within a 24-hour period and customers cannot modify that time.

[Floridalife]

THanks, so what would you recommend for cloning? wait at least 24hours since your last change in PROD before cloning to DEV ?

Also Is it best practice to use the standby DB or source? I understand what the standby DB is but not sure what the impact is with cloning compared to source

8 Standby Database

The standby database is a secondary copy of the MySQL database for production instances. This database is read-only and kept consistent with the production database.

The new clone engine does not use the standby database for cloning as the old cloning engine did. But if the new clone engine fails, the system falls back to using the old clone engine. In a HA instance, the old cloning engine uses the standby database for cloning.

[Chuck Tomasi]

Hi Mathieu,

You may be over thinking this a bit. The clone process on HI is going to use the most efficient means possible to make the clone from the latest backup without impacting production. You don't need to worry about the standby DB. Just launch the clone request and it will update your sub-prod instance from your latest production backup. If you wait 24 hours, you'll get tonight's backup, sure, but how much different is that going to be than last night's? That's for you to determine on your release schedule.

This should help:

Ask The Expert: Live Q&A - Cloning | What is Cloning, How it Works & Best Practices

[chriscoldiron]

Found an easy way to see this information without contacting support. (we are on Jakarta Patch 3a, though I imagine this is available in most versions)

1. Schedule a clone from prod (you can cancel it after if you don't intend to clone just yet)
2. Wait about 15 minutes
3. Navigate to the 'Active Clone' record for the clone you just requested
   Filter Navigator > System Clone > Active Clones
4. In the related list "Clone Logs" you should see a message indicating which backup will be used for the clone