Google Cloud Platform (GCP) – Backup and Restore Procedures

Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

In GCP, Google Cloud Storage (GCS) acts as a robust platform for backup storage. Google Cloud’s snapshot feature is widely used for creating point-in-time backups of persistent disks. Google Cloud SQL, the managed database service, incorporates automatic daily backups that can be restored with a few clicks through the Google Cloud Console. GCP’s IaC tool, Deployment Manager, allows you to restore entire environments.

GCP provides several services for backup and restore, each designed to cater to different data types and use cases. Here are some key services:

• Google Cloud Storage (GCS):
  • Backup: GCS is a highly durable and available object storage service. You can use it to back up and store various types of data, including images, videos, and other unstructured data.
  • Restore: Data stored in GCS can be easily restored through the GCP console, the gsutil command-line tool, or programmatically using APIs.

Let’s consider a scenario where you want to back up a local file to GCS using the gsutil command-line tool. Here are the steps:

1. Install gsutil:
   • Ensure that you have the gsutil command-line tool installed.
2. Authenticate with Google Cloud:
   • Run the following command to authenticate and configure the gsutil tool with your Google Cloud project:

gcloud auth login

Follow the instructions to log in and set the appropriate configurations.

3. Create a bucket:
   If you don’t have a GCS bucket, create one using the following command:

Replace [BUCKET_NAME] with your desired bucket name:
gsutil mb -c regional -l us-central1 gs://[BUCKET_NAME]

4. Perform the backup:
   Now, you can back up a local file to your GCS bucket. Replace [LOCAL_FILE] with the path to your local file and [BUCKET_NAME] with your GCS bucket:

gsutil cp [LOCAL_FILE] gs://[BUCKET_NAME]/

For example, let’s say you want to back up a file named example.txt located in your home directory to a bucket named my-backups. The commands would be as follows:
gsutil mb -c regional -l us-central1 gs://my-backups
gsutil cp ~/example.txt gs://my-backups/

This example creates a bucket named my-backups and then copies the local file, example.txt, to that bucket.
Here are some notes:
• Ensure that you have the necessary permissions to perform these operations
• Customize the bucket name, file path, and other parameters based on your requirements
Now, let’s go through the process of restoring a file from GCS to your local machine using the gsutil command-line tool.
For this, you must make sure you have the gsutil command-line tool installed and that you’ve authenticated with your Google Cloud account (as explained previously).

Restoring a file
Follow these steps:

1. List objects in the bucket:
   You need to identify the object (file) you want to restore. List the objects in your bucket using the following command:

gsutil ls gs://[BUCKET_NAME]/

Replace [BUCKET_NAME] with the name of your GCS bucket. This command will display a list of objects in the bucket.

2. Restore the file:
   Now, you can restore the file from GCS to your local machine. Use the following command:

gsutil cp gs://[BUCKET_NAME]/[OBJECT_NAME] [LOCAL_DESTINATION]

Replace [BUCKET_NAME] with your bucket name, [OBJECT_NAME] with the name of the object you want to restore (obtained from the list command), and [LOCAL_DESTINATION] with the path where you want to restore the file locally.
For example, let’s say you want to restore the example.txt file from the my-backups bucket to your home directory.
This command copies the specified object from the bucket to your local machine.
Here are some notes:
• Ensure that you have the necessary permissions to perform these operations
• Customize the bucket name, object name, local destination, and other parameters based on your requirements

3. Google Cloud SQL:
   • Backup: Cloud SQL provides automated daily backups for MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQL Server databases. You can also create on-demand backups.
   • Restore: You can restore from automated backups to a point in time or a specific backup.
   Let’s go through the process of backing up a Google Cloud SQL database using the gcloud command-line tool.
   For this, make sure you have the gcloud command-line tool installed and that you’ve authenticated with your Google Cloud account.