How to perform backup and restore of Janusgraph database which is backed by Apache Cassandra?

Question

I'm having trouble in figuring out on how to take the backup of Janusgraph database which is backed by persistent storage Apache Cassandra.

I'm looking for correct methodology on how to perform backup and restore tasks. I'm very new to this concept and have no idea on how to do this. It will be highly appreciated if someone explain the correct approach or point me to rightful documentation to safely execute the tasks.

Thanks a lot for your time.

Answer 1

Cassandra can be backed up a few ways. One way is called a "snapshot". You can issue this via "nodetool snapshot" command. What cassandra will do is to create a "snapshots" sub-directory, if it doesn't already exist, under each table that's being "backed up" (each table has its own directory where it stores its data) and then it will create the specific snapshot directory for this particular occurrence of the snapshot (either you can name the directory with the "nodetool snapshot" parameter or let it default). Cassandra will then create soft links to all of the sstables that exist for that particular table - looping through each table, keyspace or database - depending on your "nodetool snapshot" parameters. It's very fast as creating soft links takes almost 0 time. You will have to perform this command on each node in the cassandra cluster to back up all of the data. Each node's data will be backed up to the local host. I know DSE, and possibly Apache, are adding functionality to back up to object storage as well (I don't know if this is an OpsCenter-only capability or if it can be done via the snapshot command as well). You will have to watch the space consumption on this as there are no processes to clean these up.

Like many database systems, you can also purchase/use 3rd party software to perform backups (e.g. Cohesity (formally Talena), Rubrik, etc.). We use one such product in our environments and it works well (graphical interface, easy-to-use point-in-time recoveryt, etc.). They also offer easy-to-use "refresh" capabilities (e.g. refresh your PT environment from, say, production backups).

Those are probably the two best options.

Good luck.