Restore a backup after Zboot?

[Rick Kuijpers]

Hi all!

I have a client to would like to test the restore of a backup after a Zboot.

When performing a Zboot of a (non-prod) instance, are the backups of the instance also wiped? Or will the backups still be available for a restore after the instance Zboot? And will that work properly?

I cannot find the answer to these specific questions in the documentation of knowledge base in Now Support.

Regards,

Rick

[Rick Kuijpers]

@Mark Roethof @Bert_c1 @Narsing1 @Dr Atul G- LNG  Thanks for taking the time to respond. I have posted Support's final answer as a reply to my original post.

[Bert_c1]

hosted sub-prod and prod instances are backed up, I posted the retention period. And the DB changes (commands) are saved for up to 4 days. To support when customers cause data loss. data can be restored up until the time the problem/event occurred. be mindful of this when breaking your hosted instances, after that time, only nightly backups are retained.

[Narsing1]

The best practices before doing a zBoot

• Request a Temp instance before a zboot
• Note that all the customizations that you have done will be lost as per the documentation. This means there is no backup will be available for that particular instance.
• Note that once zBoot done, it goes to the factory settings which means all the Plugins that you have installed previously will not be available.  You need to reinstall all the plugins. So please make a note of all the required plugins
• You need to reconfigure the SSO
• Note that even though you have the backups, until you install all the required plugins, it may not commit properly.  Also, while taking the backup, make sure to take it in batch.  If it is custom application, publish that application so that it will be available once you zboot
• The audit history will not be available even though you successfully restore the backup.
• Make sure that you take the backup of all foundation data i.e. root tables. This is very important as some of the customizations may uses the sys id in scripts which needs to be the same.
• As per the Org. policy, you may require to have a change request as well and go through with approvals before you implement.

I hope this helps.

Thanks,

Narsing

[Rick Kuijpers]

Hello Narsing,

Your points in bullets 2, 3 and 4 are not in line with the answer I got from support, who have stated  

Backups within the retention policy period are not deleted when a zboot is performed.

and

If you restore a backup from before the zboot, your instance comes back to the same status it was before, with all the applications/plugins and  configurations you had before.

Maybe I'll test it someday on a sub-prod 😉 I can always clone back from prod in case the backups are not available any more or do not commit properly.

[Rick Kuijpers · Accepted solution]

I have raised this question with Support and the answer is now clear after some back and forth. The gist of the story is this:

Backups within the retention policy period are not deleted when a zboot is performed. The backup taken is an exact copy of the instance at the time it is taken. If you restore a backup from before the zboot, your instance comes back to the same status it was before, with all the applications/plugins and  configurations you had before.

Additionally they provided these two links to more general knowledge articles, which I share for the sake of completeness:

KB0547654 - Instance Backup and Recovery

KB0791676 - Restoring an instance with the HI Service Catalog