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Backups & Migration

Does Nautobot Cloud back up my database automatically? How long are backups kept?

Yes. In addition to the on-demand Snapshots you can create yourself, your database is automatically backed up daily, and those backups are retained for 30 days for business continuity and recovery.

What is a Snapshot? How do I take a Snapshot and restore it?

Snapshot is a Nautobot instance database backup taken at a certain point in time which can be restored later. To take a new Snapshot navigate to Organization Snapshots or instance page Snapshots tab and click "Create." To access the detailed documentation click the question mark "?" button at the top of the form. To restore a Snapshot, click the ellipsis button in a row in Snapshots list and choose "Restore". All snapshots compatible with a certain Nautobot instance version can be restored on it, not only those taken from that specific instance.

How do I upload a database from a self-hosted or on-prem Nautobot instance into Nautobot Cloud?

Generate a database backup of your self-hosted Nautobot database with pg_dump, then upload the resulting .tar file from the Snapshots section in the Nautobot Cloud Console — it will be stored as a Snapshot that can then be restored to a compatible Nautobot Cloud Instance.

See Generate a Database Backup from a Self-Hosted Nautobot for the exact pg_dump command, an optional variant that excludes the extras_objectchange audit log, and the upload steps that follow.

When I restore a Snapshot to a new instance, do I need to select the same Apps?

Yes. A Snapshot is a database backup, and the target instance must be compatible with it: create it from the same Image (or a newer compatible one) with the same set of Apps as the instance the Snapshot came from, at the same or newer App versions. If the target is missing an App that was installed on the source, is a lower version, or is a different major version, the Console rejects the restore with a compatibility error before it runs, and the target instance is left unchanged. See Backup & Restore.