Section 1 of 3 · 6 minutes
Turn recovery needs into a backup design
Your goal
What you will be able to do
Use recovery-point and recovery-time targets to choose base-backup, WAL, and retention requirements.
Why this matters at work
The practical reason
Backup frequency is meaningful only when it supports a stated amount of tolerable data loss and downtime.
Learn
The idea in plain English
Recovery point objective, or RPO, is the maximum acceptable data loss measured in time. Recovery time objective, or RTO, is the target time to restore service.
A physical base backup plus continuous WAL archiving can support point-in-time recovery. Logical dumps serve different migration and object-level needs and are not a replacement for every physical recovery requirement.
Remember these points
- Start with RPO and RTO, not a tool name.
- Keep the base backup and every required WAL segment together.
- Use more than one failure domain for critical backup copies.
See it in SQL
Read WAL archiving state
Confirm whether the server is configured to send completed WAL to an archive.
SELECT
name,
setting,
source
FROM pg_settings
WHERE name IN ('archive_mode', 'archive_command', 'archive_library')
ORDER BY name;The active setting and source show intent, but they do not prove archive delivery succeeds.
Follow with archive statistics and a restore test. Avoid logging secrets that may appear in an archive command.
Current archive configuration values and the source that supplied each value.
Useful words
Important terms
- RPO
- The maximum amount of recent data the recovery plan may lose.
- RTO
- The target time for restoring the required service.
Quick check · Not graded
Check your understanding
What should determine backup frequency and WAL retention?
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