How to Backup ClickHouse Database Using Airbyte?

While ClickHouse’s replication feature mitigates the risk of node crashes and hardware failures, it doesn’t fully safeguard against security breaches, database corruption, or operational mistakes. These accidents might keep you up at night. Hence, it is on the organization to plan a well-structured back strategy to ensure the data can be restored quickly in case of any unexpected failures.

In this guide, you’ll explore the best methods for backing up a ClickHouse database, both manually and automatically, to prevent data loss and maintain business continuity.

Key Considerations for ClickHouse Backup

ClickHouse's columnar storage and robust OLAP high-performance analytical capabilities allow your organization to manage enormous amounts of data. However, assuring data trustworthiness and recoverability is vital. This section delves into some backup considerations for securing your ClickHouse data.

Backup Location

Store backups in a separate location from the ClickHouse server to protect against unexpected accidents. Depending on the volume of data, performance, and cost requirements, you might consider remote or local storage. For large datasets and long-term backups, consider using object cloud storage. Ensure the backup storage systems are secured with proper access controls and encryption.

Backup Strategy

Decide whether to perform full backups (copying all data) or incremental backups (copying only the changes since the last successful backup). Though incremental backups are faster and save storage resources, restoration can be complex. Next, determine how often backups must be scheduled depending on the frequency of data changes. With these factors, you also need to implement a retention period for how long backups should be kept and an auto backup deletion policy to delete older backups.

Version Backup

This is especially important at times when data corruption goes unnoticed for some time. Keeping multiple copies of your ClickHouse backup will help you revert to the previous version of the backup. Version backup will allow you to restore data to a specific point in time before the error occurred. Alternatively, these backups can be used to develop a test environment that mirrors production data at different points in time.

Performance Impact

Backing up large datasets can heavily consume CPU resources, network bandwidth, I/O load, and memory space, especially if they are performed during peak business hours. This can potentially slow down application responsiveness. To mitigate this, you can plan your ClickHouse backups during off-peak hours. If your storage system supports snapshots, use them to create consistent backups with minimal performance impact. Another strategy would be to regularly monitor resources during backups to identify and address any performance bottlenecks.

How to Perform ClickHouse Backup Manually?

You can connect to your ClickHouse database using various methods. Some of these include clickhouse-client command-line tool, SQL Clients, clickhouse-driver for Python users, or HTTP API. The most common method amongst these is using CLI:

• Open the terminal and connect to your ClickHouse database.
• Check which databases and tables are available by executing SHOW DATABASES and SHOW TABLES FROM database_name command.

There are two ways to backup ClickHouse data: clickhouse-backup Utility and BACKUP query (built-in).

The BACKUP query is used to create a backup of a specific table or entire database. You can store backups in multiple locations. For instance, a local file system, disk storage, or object storage system like S3. Meanwhile, RESTORE helps you to recover the data from previously created backups.

• To create a backup of a single table:

BACKUP TABLE database_name.table_name TO Disk(‘<disk_name>’, ‘<path>/’);

• To create a backup of an entire database:

BACKUP DATABASE database_name TO Disk(‘<backup_disk>’, ‘backup_folder/’);

• To restore the database from backup:

RESTORE DATABASE database_name FROM  Disk(‘<backup_disk>’, ‘backup_folder/’);

‍Note: The above-mentioned steps will vary depending on the use case, storage system, and required permissions.

How to Perform ClickHouse Backup Using Airbyte?

Airbyte is one of the most reliable data movement platforms that facilitates data backup in addition to efficient data integration. With its extensive library of over 550 pre-built connectors and no-code UI, you can quickly extract data from the ClickHouse database and load it into various destinations like data warehouses, data lakes, vector databases, and more.

Another crucial feature of Airbyte is its data synchronization capabilities. With this feature, you can schedule your backups on an hourly or weekly basis and even set custom schedules. Its incremental loading feature allows you to capture only source changes and replicate them in the destination storage system. This eliminates the resource overhead and the need for full data transfers.

Now that we know what are the capabilities of Airbyte, let's understand how to perform a ClickHouse backup using this platform. To get started with ClickHouse data replication, follow these three straightforward steps:

Step 1: Configure ClickHouse as Source

• Sign up for free or log into your Airbyte Cloud.
• On the Airbyte dashboard, click on Sources.‍
• On Set up a new source page, search and select for ClickHouse connector.

• Fill in all the mandatory fields, including Source name, Host, Port, Database, Username, and SSH Tunnel method for authentication.
• After filling in all the necessary fields, click the Set up source button.

Step 2: Set up a Backup Destination

• Click on Destinations.‍
• On Set up a new destination page, choose a backup destination like Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, or another database.
• Configure the destination settings, such as storage path, authentication credentials, etc.
• Click the Set up destination button.

Step 3: Create and Schedule Your Connection

• Click on Connections.‍
• Select the source and destination that you created in the above steps.
• In the Select streams tab, select Sync mode and the streams that you want to replicate. The ClickHouse source supports both Full Refresh and Incremental syncs. For every sync, you can decide if this connector must migrate only the new or updated data or all rows in the tables and columns you set up for replication.
• Click on Next.‍
• In the Configure Connection tab, select how you want your syncs to be triggered, Replication frequency, and Destination Namespace.

• Click on Finish & Sync.‍

By leveraging Airbyte’s connectors, incremental syncs, schema evolution, and automation capabilities, you can efficiently backup ClickHouse data with minimal human intervention.

Choosing Between Manual & Airbyte ClickHouse Backup Methods

Here’s a quick comparison to help you decide:

Manual Method

Pros:

• Complete control over the ClickHouse backup process.
• Recommended for infrequent or one-time backups.

‍Cons:

• As it requires manual attention at every step, it is prone to human errors.
• Time-consuming for large datasets.
• Requires technical expertise to understand and execute commands.
• Might be resource-intensive.

‍When to Choose?

• For highly customized backups.
• Where speed isn’t an issue.
• Small datasets.

Airbyte

Pros:

• Automates database replication.
• Centralized ClickHouse data.
• Less downtime compared to the manual approach.

‍Cons:

• Requires initial platform setup and connector configuration.‍

When to Choose Airbyte?

• For ongoing, automated, and hassle-free data backups.
• If you handle massive datasets and require a scalable solution.
• Where performance, speed, and reliability are optimal.
• Airbyte provides direct integration with cloud-based storage solutions.

Why Choose Airbyte for ClickHouse Backup?

Some unique features of Airbyte that will help you with ClickHouse integration, as well as backup, include:

• Flexibility to Develop Custom Connectors: Apart from the pre-built connectors, Airbyte enables you to create custom ones using CDK, Connector Builder, and language-specific CDKs. The Connector Builder comes with an AI assistant that auto-fills most of the configuration fields, reducing the development time.‍
• PyAirbyte: Airbyte offers PyAirbyte, a Python open-source library, which allows you to extract data from dispersed sources using Airbyte connectors in your Python environment.
• ‍Schema Management: You can define how Airbyte must handle source schema changes for each connection. This process helps you ensure efficient and consistent data syncs. For Cloud users, schema checks are automatically performed every 15 mins, while for Self-hosted after 24 hours.‍
• Streamline Gen AI Workflows: You can store semi-structured and unstructured data directly into Airbyte supported vector stores, including Pinecone, Qdrant, and more. You can implement RAG techniques or perform dbt transformations to modify data. This helps you simplify the process of creating Gen AI applications like semantic search.‍
• Record Change History: This feature is particularly useful when there is a sync failure. Airbyte will automatically modify issues causing records in transit, log these changes, and complete the sync. This ensures syncs aren’t disrupted and maintains overall consistency.‍
• Open-Source: Excluding paid plans, you can also leverage Airbyte’s exceptional features with its free-to-use, open-source version. This plan is suitable for data practitioners who want complete control of their data integration needs and infrastructure setup.‍
• Adheres to Industry Regulations: Airbyte places a strong security practice in order to ensure data is protected during rest as well as transit. You can also enable role-based access control, utilize logging capabilities, and integrate monitoring tools. It also adheres to industry standards, including ISO 27001, SOC 2, GDPR, and HIPAA.

Use Cases For ClickHouse Backup

Though ClickHouse Cloud services come with default backup policies, a separate backup strategy offers increased customization, control, and flexibility. We have already discussed the importance of backup strategy in the overall article, but here are some use cases of why you must consider creating a ClickHouse backup:

‍Disaster Recovery: Data protection against unexpected failures such as server crashes, hardware failures, or malfunctions can prevent data loss. A quick ClickHouse database backup can guarantee the continuation of business operations without losing any important records.

‍Data Migration and Upgrades: If you are migrating your ClickHouse instance to a new environment or upgrading to a new version. In such situations, backups will help restore the exact data copy without any inconsistencies. In addition, ClickHouse database replication data might help you in testing and staging environments.

‍Regulatory Requirements: Certain regulations like GDPR or HIPAA require organizations to implement robust data protection practices, which inherently include the need for reliable backup. This will bypass any legal risk and provide adherence to compliance standards.

‍Protection against Security Threats: Cyber attacks like ransomware can encrypt your data and make it inaccessible. Regular backup in the cloud or offline environment can help you recover the data without paying any ransom.

Conclusion

Backup and restore are crucial data management practices that every organization must streamline to have a safety net for any unforeseen reasons—whether accidental data deletion, resource failure, corruption, and so on. Backup ensures the data can be stored in its previous state of successful backup. This helps you to minimize application downtime and prevent business data from being permanently lost.

By executing the techniques outlined in this article; you can either automate or manually set the recovery of your ClickHouse data. We recommend automation as it will enable you to focus on priority tasks. For hassle-free backup, give Airbyte a try!