Site backup and recovery

Owned by Diego Cesa de Meira (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Sept 05, 2019 by Josh Hevenor (Unlicensed)
4 min read

ArcGIS Enterprise site backup and recovery is performed using the webgisdr utility.

Inclusions and Exclusions

ArcGIS Enterprise site backup includes:

  • portal items and settings

  • GIS services and settings

  • managed database (relational data store) and hosted scene layer cache databases (tile cache data store)

ArcGIS Enterprise site backup does not include:

  • map service cache tiles and hosted tile layer caches

    • the arcgiscache directory must be backed up separately; this could be accomplished by storing the arcgiscache directory in an Azure storage account (assuming acceptable performance)

  • referenced data sources

    • for example, data sources stored in unmanaged enterprise geodatabases; these must be backed up separately; this can be accomplished using Azure SQL databases

    • or, file-based data sources; these should be stored in Azure file storage

  • spatiotemporal big data store - a separate backup utility is used for these (see @Jiehua)

Requirements

The following steps are required in order to enable and execute ArcGIS Enterprise site backup and recovery.

  1. Enable point-in-time recovery on the ArcGIS Data Store.

  2. Share the temporary D:\ drive on the portal machine. The share permissions should allow all users to Change and Read.

  3. Create an Azure blob container.

  4. Modify backup and recovery property files (starting with base property files, update them with the portal admin URL, storage account and blob container, etc.).

  5. Set up chron jobs to run full and incremental backups at specified intervals.

Backup Schedule and Retention

Assuming acceptable data loss of approximately 1 hour, incremental backups should be performed each hour, with a full backup performed each day. Backups shall be retained for a period of 7 calendar days*.

 

Running the Scripts

NOTE Backups are configured via ARM Deployment and Custom Script Extensions. These instructions can be used to modify existing backup settings, or manually add backups when an approach changes.

Enable Point-in-Time Recovery on ArcGIS Data Store

  1. On a workstation (not the VM hosting the data store), start Windows PowerShell.

  2. Set the execution policy to allow running unsigned scripts.

    Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force

  3. Connect to Azure.

    Connect-AzureRMAccount

    Enter appropriate login credentials at the login window:

     

  4. Run the script to configure the ArcGIS Data Store:

    .\CreatePITRCustomScriptExtension.ps1 ` -ResourceGroupName <resource group name> ` -VMName "<VM name> ` -Location <location> ` -ScriptStorageAccountName <storage account name> ` -ScriptStorageAccountKey <storage account access key>

     

  5. Verify that the script executed successfully. The output should appear as follows:

     

  6. Further verify that the ArcGIS Data Store is configured correctly. Log on to the VM hosting the ArcGIS Data Store. Start PowerShell, and run the following command:

     

The value Is-Point-in-time recovery enabled should be Yes for the relational data store.

Configure Site Backups

  1. On a workstation (not the VM hosting the data store), start Windows PowerShell.

  2. Set the execution policy to allow running unsigned scripts.

     

  3. Connect to Azure. Enter appropriate login credentials at the login window.

     

  4. Run the script to configure ArcGIS Enterprise site backups:

     

  5. Verify that the script executed successfully. The output should appear as follows:

     

  6. Further verify that the backup jobs are configured correctly. Log on the to VM hosting the Poral. Open the Task Scheduler, and verify that the backup scheduled tasks have been created:

     

*determine data loss and retention requirements from Dominic