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Hi there,
Have you ever wondered when backups are taken from your ServiceNow instances? Or what the latest available backup is? The answer to this question is actually surprisingly easy, though since it is asked by almost every customer I come across, let's give this a little bit of attention with a small article.
Instance backups
ServiceNow does full backups weekly and incremental backups daily. Full backups are kept for up to four weeks, and incremental backups for up to six days. All instances are backed up independently, production and non-production/demo.
Restoring a sub-production/demo instance from any of the backups can be done through this Catalog Item in the Automation Store on the Support site. Restoring a production instance can be done by raising a ServiceNow Support case.
List of backups
Getting insight into a list of available backups of your ServiceNow instances is surprisingly easy. ServiceNow made a Catalog Item available in the Automation Store on the Support site that allows you to select the instance you are after and provide a date for the desired backup. The Catalog Item does contain a Submit button, though don't worry, this Catalog Item won't start performing a backup immediately 😀, it's just to request a list of available backups. Based on the date given, the closest backup for the date given will be listed plus four earlier backups.
Request a list of available backups through this Catalog Item in the Automation Store on the Support site.
System Clone backup
By default System Clones are backup based. Backup based meaning a System Clone will take the latest available backup available for the source Instance. Latest available backup as that you can find when using the Catalog Item on the Automation Store to get a list of available instance backups.
It is possible to apply an "On-demand Backup" if for whatever reason you need a newer backup than the latest one available. A new backup of the source instance will be made at the specified clone start time. This option is already available for a while, though not made visible by default. With the new Washington DC Clone Dashboard, under the General Optional Settings a section for Apply On-demand Backup has been added.
Note: The System Clone will only begin after the backup completes, this will push back the time at which the actual cloning process starts. Applying on-demand backup will make the total duration of a System Clone longer.
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That's it. Hope you like it. If any questions or remarks, let me know!
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Kind regards,
Mark Roethof
Independent ServiceNow Consultant
9x ServiceNow MVP
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