Taking an application consistent snapshot of a PostgreSQL database, storing the snapshots on the IBM Spectrum Protect server, using progressive block level incremental forever

The backups are fast, as it only needs to read and send the blocks that has been changed since last backup.

The more often you take a backup, the less data to read and send to the IBM Spectrum Protect backup server.

Isn't that what you want?

Restores are faster too, as only one backup needs to be copied back, no need to restore full, all of its incrementals.

Besides that, it is a block to block copy, which does not involve any readings that needs to go through the application or database.

And it is nearly instantly, no need to wait for all the data to be copied back, you can use it while the snapshot reverts are ongoing in the background.

Why wait for the restore to finish if one can use the data immediately?

The solution works on almost any type of hardwares, as it doesn't use hardware based snapshot techniques.

The number of snapshots that one can use is not limited to the hardware, it is limited to the IBM Spectrum Protect retention policies configured on the backup server.

# backupsnap postgresql

Restoring from snapshot

# restoresnap -t 2022-01-06.12:07:00 -c postgresql

Redirect restore of a single volume /dev/mapper/vg-lv to a new place /dev/mapper/vg2-lv2

# restoresnap -c postgresql -s /dev/mapper/vg-lv -d /dev/mapper/vg2-lv2

List available snapshots

# listsnap -c postgresql