topic Re: Need some explanation about automatic cluster backup in Dynatrace Managed Q&A

Automatic cluster backup

m_nasrudin1 — Tue, 13 Jun 2023 14:41:14 GMT

Hi,

Anyone can explain to me the automatic cluster backup?

Now I have a cluster with 1 node, the /var partition around 800 GB. Let say the /var directory is 90% usage, when I enable automatic backup, does the backup process is backup this 90% of 800 GB ? so I must need extra space in this server to save the backup in the sever ?

Thanks

Re: Automatic cluster backup

ChadTurner — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 14:23:35 GMT

So the backup will not contain your data surrounding metrics and so on. The backup is primarily settings and configurations. We used a shared drive where all 3 nodes could back up centrally. In the event we ran out of space, Dynatrace would toss an error and staff would grow or clean up the space. Ours was set to update daily at night during "off/nonPeak hours"

Back up and restore a cluster

Re: Need some explanation about automatic cluster backup

m_nasrudin1 — Wed, 23 Sep 2020 20:17:59 GMT

In this doc is also mentioned about cassandra and elasticsearch, then this mean the monitoring data like metrics, transaction, etc also backed up ?

Re: Automatic cluster backup

Radoslaw_Szulgo — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 14:24:53 GMT

As written in docs:

All important Dynatrace Managed configuration files (naming rules, tags, management zones, alerting profiles, and more) and monitoring data can be backed up automatically on a daily basis.

To clarify this, monitoring data includes:

metric timeseries
user sessions
Events, problems, alerts

More about different data types: https://www.dynatrace.com/support/help/how-to-use-dynatrace/data-privacy-and-security/data-privacy/data-retention-periods/

Backup does not include transactions (PurePaths) storage, session replays, synthetic sessions.

Now, to answer your question directly: Backup contains most important data but not all that is mounted at your /var. Here's how you can estimate the backup size:

Estimate cluster backup size

It'll be smaller if you exclude user sessions and metric timeseries.

PS I understood docs need to be clearer about this topic. Thanks!

Re: Need some explanation about automatic cluster backup

Babar_Qayyum — Wed, 10 Feb 2021 06:31:48 GMT

Hello @Radoslaw S.

What could be the expected backup size for the 7 cluster nodes only for the Dynatrace Managed configuration data (naming rules, tags, management zones, alerting profiles, and more)/ or without highligted data?

Regards,

Babar

Re: Need some explanation about automatic cluster backup

Radoslaw_Szulgo — Wed, 10 Feb 2021 07:35:29 GMT

Very good question. I’m currently working on providing some estimates but it’s not that easy as varies at different customers due to their monitoring different nature.

So if you keep just the configuration is more or less 50% saving comparing to full backup. We are working also on reducing that size.

When you exclude sessions ... it’s hard to tell without the knowledge of how many user sessions you have. What helps here in estimation is listing all the elasticsearch indices and checking their size. We exclude “visits”.

Anyway ... you’ll probably have min. 500GB of backup size - which I find the typical size for that configuration.

Re: Need some explanation about automatic cluster backup

Babar_Qayyum — Wed, 10 Feb 2021 08:07:25 GMT

Hello @Radoslaw S.

Thank you for your comments.

Do you think that a maximum of 1TB should be sufficient even for the future growth of the configuration files and the number of nodes?

Regards,

Babar

Re: Need some explanation about automatic cluster backup

Radoslaw_Szulgo — Wed, 10 Feb 2021 08:46:04 GMT

I don't want to blindly say it's fine. Please open a support ticket and mention me there I'll then review you cluster and provide personalized feedback

Re: Need some explanation about automatic cluster backup

Radoslaw_Szulgo — Wed, 10 Feb 2021 08:46:39 GMT

Yes. However transactions = purepaths are not backed up.

Re: Need some explanation about automatic cluster backup

Babar_Qayyum — Wed, 10 Feb 2021 09:12:45 GMT

Hello @Radoslaw S.

The support ticket (SUP-66070) opened as suggested.

Regards,

Babar