Backup and Recovery

WSO2 Open Banking does not persist data in the file systems or retain or generate artifacts. By default, we only store log files in the file system and data and artifacts in the databases and the repository. 

What you should back up

1. Database backups: 
   
   • Back up of all the databases defined in <WSO2_OB_IAM_HOME>/repository/conf/datasources/master-datasources.xml and <WSO2_OB_APIM_HOME>/repository/conf/datasources/master-datasources.xml.
   • Back up any other databases configured in any files in the <WSO2_OB_IAM_HOME>/repository/conf/datasources directory and <WSO2_OB_APIM_HOME>/repository/conf/datasources. 
2. Artifact backups:
   This includes hot-deployment artifacts, web applications, synapse files, tenant directories, etc. Back up of the <WSO2_OB_IAM_HOME>/repository and  <WSO2_OB_APIM_HOME>/repository directories periodically. The frequency of the backups depends on your usage. For example, if you are creating or updating APIs daily, take this backup daily.
3. WSO2 Open Banking instance backups:
   A one-time-only backup that you take of the entire server directory. This includes all the configuration files, logs, server extensions, and deployment artifacts for both tenants and super tenants. This back up is ideally done when the server is ready to be deployed in a production environment. 

Backup recommendations

We recommend that you use a proper artifact management system such as Puppet to back up and manage your artifacts before deploying them in the WSO2 Carbon runtime. Also, use the WSO2 Update Manager (WUM) tool, which is a command-line utility that allows you to get the latest updates (bug fixes and security fixes) of a particular release.

Diagram: managing your artifacts using a configuration management system

Recovery recommendations

Be sure to determine the following depending on your business-continuity requirements:

• Recovery Point Objective (RPO): Up to what points are you to recover. This is determined by the latest, known, good point.
• Recovery Time Objective (RTO): How long does it take to recover to the RPO.
• Backup Frequency: How frequently you should take backups. If your RPO is one day, your backup frequency should be daily.
• Disaster Recovery Site: The place where the latest copy of your backup is. This can be from a different shelf in your datacenter to a completely different geographical location.

We also recommend the following:

1. Align your artifact deployment and recovery processes.
2. Schedule disaster recovery drills to test the recoverability of the system.
3. Test your artifacts in an environment that is identical to the production environment before deploying them into production.
   

Recovery strategy

The following steps include how to recover your setup using the backups:

1. Recover the hot-deployment artifacts by replacing the <WSO2_OB_IAM_HOME>/repository and  <WSO2_OB_APIM_HOME>/repository directories with the backed up copy.
2. Recover the entire WSO2 Open Banking solution by directly replacing the existing WSO2 server directory in the production setup with the backup server directory. This will ensure that all the files, logs, and configurations made to the solution do not need to be redone.
3. To recover the databases, follow the recovery strategy recommended by the databases you are using. For information on supported and tested databases, see Prerequisites for WSO2 Open Banking.