Validating and Testing Backups

Verify backup integrity and test restoration procedures.

Verify backup completion

Check that backup operations completed successfully:

# List backup operations and check status
ydb operation list incbackup

Look for these status values in the output:

Status	Meaning
`SUCCESS`	Operation completed successfully
`PROGRESS`	Operation is still running
`CANCELLED`	Operation was cancelled (currently not applicable — cancel is not yet supported)
`ERROR`	Operation failed

# Get detailed information about a specific operation
ydb operation get <operation-id>

# Verify backup directory exists
ydb scheme ls .backups/collections/production_backups/ | tail -1

If an operation shows ERROR status, check the operation details for the error message and verify that all tables in the collection are accessible.

Verify external exports

Regularly verify that backups can be exported to external storage:

# Export to S3 and verify
ydb export s3 \
  --s3-endpoint storage.yandexcloud.net \
  --bucket my-backup-bucket \
  --item src=.backups/collections/production_backups/20250821141425Z_full,dst=backups/test_export

# Check export completed successfully
ydb operation list export/s3

# Verify exported data exists in S3 (using your S3 client)
# aws s3 ls s3://my-backup-bucket/backups/test_export/

Test backup restoration

Regularly test that backups can be restored:

# Export a recent backup for testing
ydb tools dump -p .backups/collections/production_backups/20250601120000Z_full -o /tmp/test_restore

# Test restore to temporary location (in test environment)
ydb tools restore -p /Root/test_restore_verification -i /tmp/test_restore

Validation checklist

[ ] Backup operations complete without errors
[ ] Backup directories are created with expected timestamps
[ ] Exported backups can be imported successfully
[ ] Restored data matches expected content
[ ] Incremental chain integrity is maintained

Recommended testing schedule

Test Type	Frequency	Description
Operation status	Daily	Check that scheduled backups complete
Export verification	Weekly	Verify exports to external storage
Full restore test	Monthly	Complete restore to test environment
Disaster recovery drill	Quarterly	Full DR simulation

Setting up monitoring and alerts

YDB does not provide built-in backup monitoring or alerting. Implement external monitoring to detect backup failures:

Example monitoring script

#!/bin/bash
# Check for failed backup operations
FAILED=$(ydb operation list incbackup --format json | jq '[.operations[] | select(.status == "ERROR")] | length')

if [ "$FAILED" -gt 0 ]; then
  echo "ALERT: $FAILED backup operation(s) failed" | mail -s "YDB Backup Alert" admin@example.com
fi

# Check that a backup was created in the last 24 hours
LATEST=$(ydb scheme ls .backups/collections/production_backups/ | sort | tail -1)
# Add your own logic to parse timestamp and compare with current time

Monitoring recommendations

Schedule monitoring scripts via cron to run after expected backup times
Check both operation status (ERROR) and that new backups were created
Integrate with your existing alerting system (email, Slack, PagerDuty, etc.)
Monitor backup storage growth to avoid running out of space

Next steps

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Maintenance and cleanup

Overview