Testing JIRA Cloud backups in a separate instance - licence impact?

[Richard Jones]

Our company policy requires us to test backups and the restore process periodically. e.g. once a year.

Given there are no automated backups of JIRA Cloud, I manually complete and download a JIRA for Cloud Backup each week and store that file in a remote location.

To test the backup I intend to create a new instance of our JIRA Software platform in JIRA Cloud, restore the backup and confirm that the data is visible. I will then delete that test instance once the tests are complete.

I want to ensure that I keep the test file away from the primary production instance.

My questions are:

- Will this approach work and is it the best method to test the cloud backups work?

- Are there any licencing implications of second up a second instance of JIRA Software in the cloud (albeit temporarily)? It's the same set of users.

- Are there links to official pages/documents to validate any answers to these questions.

Thanks for your help!

[Marco]

Hi,
I am facing the same question right now and the documentation is very mixed at some points.

(first Picture)
I have first basic questions
Each Jira software site has its own system setting?
or are there system settings only global?

I have done exactly the same Backup as @Richard Jones. 

"System Setup --> Backup Manager -->Backup files for Jira cloud"

After that I added a new product in the admin panel named play.atlassian.net
and there I want to upload the backup but I get the message displayed and I am not sure what it means.

(error message)

thanks for your help I am not a software administrator or trained programmer.
But have taken it on in our new small company and am trying to learn as much about the documentation as possible.

[Laura Snoeij]

Hi Marco, 

The first part of the "error" message is a warning that all links now pointing to x/company.atlassian.net will change to x/play.atlassian.net. 

The second part, if there is already data on the play.atlassian.net instance it will be overwritten by the data from the backup. 

Laura

[Oliver Siebenmarck _Polymetis Apps_]

Hi @Richard Jones ,

@Sakina already provided you with the links to the official documentation, so let me focus on your first two questions.

Your approach will certainly work, but it might not be the best method depending on your specific backup requirements. Starting with Cloud Premium, you get Sandboxes which you can definitely use to test your backup strategy – without additional licensing costs. 

If you need more fine grained control over what to exactly is being restored, I believe there are some apps in the marketplace. Personally, I think Revyz looks promising, as I happen to know the team behind it. 

Hope that helps,
 Oliver

[Vish Reddy {Revyz}]

Thank you @Oliver Siebenmarck _Polymetis Apps_ appreciate it.

Hi @Richard Jones ,

Happy to provide all the details of what we do today and how we are evolving our roadmap to you.

Thank you 

Vish

[Richard Jones]

Thanks everyone for your responses.

I'm comfortable with the process of completing a manual backup of the JIRA site and am aware of the current limitations.

@Vish Reddy {Revyz}  - I have actually been looking at your solution and it is something we are considering for early next year.  

My scenario I'm trying to do is:

Backups (no issues here)

Login to my site: company.atlassian.net 

Create and download the cloud backup.

Testing backups (my issue/query)

I'm thinking of creating a new site: company-test.atlassian.net

Restore the backup from company.atlassian.net here.

Completing checks to confirm the data is present.

My questions are:

1. If I create an additional site, to I get charged additional licence costs per user (given they are the same users - all managed through Atlassian Access)?

2. Will the restore process work between different sites?

@Oliver Siebenmarck _Polymetis Apps_  - I already have a Sandbox, but I thought that had to be a copy from the production instance. I didn't try to do a restore to that... I'll definitely check that out. Thank you!

[Vish Reddy {Revyz}]

Hi @Richard Jones - If you are looking to just test, I can set you up with a site for you to do your testing. Please feel free to pick a time on my calendar that works best for your for an introductory call - calendly.

Looking forward to talking to you and getting you setup.

Thank you

Vish

[Sakina]

@Richard Jones  Please check the following might help

1-How is backup/Restore handled in  Atlassian Cloud?

For Jira and Confluence Cloud, Atlassian utilises the snapshot feature of Amazon RDS (Amazon Relational Database Service) to create automated daily backups of each RDS instance. Amazon RDS snapshots are retained for 30 days with support for point-in-time recovery and are encrypted using AES-256 encryption. See https://www.atlassian.com/trust/security/data-management

2- how can Jira admin backup and restore in Jira cloud

See https://support.atlassian.com/jira-cloud-administration/docs/export-issues/ for the instructions

3- how can we do automated backup in jira cloud

Refer to https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirakb/automate-backups-for-jira-cloud-779160659.html