Skip to main content

Back up and restore the data of your Quorum Blockchain Service member

Quorum Blockchain Service (QBS) allows you to back up the public chain data of your member to be used later for archival or disaster-recovery purposes. Backing up your QBS member temporarily creates an additional node in your member, syncs the chain data to the new node, then shuts down the node to copy the chain data to a retrievable backup file. Once the backup file is created, the temporary node is deleted.

Currently, the backup functionality doesn't back up the private state in the Tessera database.

caution

Backup functionality is only available for the Business and Enterprise tiers of QBS.

Start a backup​

Use the QBS management API to initiate a backup of your QBS member. Select Authorize on the API website to authorize running the APIs.

Authorize API

Once you authorize the API, select the PUT request for Starts a backup process that creates a quorum data backup under the Backups section, and select Try it out.

Try it out

In the fields for the API request, fill out the following using your QBS member information:

  • subscriptionID - Your subscription ID, in the Overview tab for your QBS member, under the Essentials section.

  • resourceGroupName - The resource group to which your QBS member is deployed.

    danger

    This is NOT the Managed Application resource group.

  • blockchainMemberName - The name of your QBS member, also known as the name of your Managed Application, in the upper left corner of the Overview tab.

Overview Page

When you execute the API, a response code of 200 indicates the request was successful.

Check the status of your backup process​

After executing the API to initiate the backup process, you can check on the status of the backup, and retrieve the location of the backup once the process completes.

Select the GET request for Lists backup operations status, files, and download links under the Backups section, and select Try it out.

Try it out

Use the same information in the API request previously used to initiate the backup.

Execute the API and view the Response body returned.

Example JSON result
{
  "nextLink": null,
  "backupOperations": [
    {
      "filename": "",
      "status": "Provisioning backup node",
      "uri": ""
    },
    {
      "filename": "qbs-backup-2022-09-21-07-41-22.tar.gz",
      "status": "Completed",
      "uri": "https://backups6oc6zb7mozkwk.blob.core.windows.net/backups-container/qbs-backup-2022-09-21-07-41-22.tar.gz?se=2022-09-28T20%3A17Z&sp=r&sv=2021-06-08&sr=b&sig=NvX%2FprwEAXLJzlbCc8fYKzJkhoIKWt8qvC8h5sRpGLw%3D"
    },
    {
      "filename": "qbs-backup-2022-09-20-08-36-10.tar.gz",
      "status": "Completed",
      "uri": "https://backups6oc6zb7mozkwk.blob.core.windows.net/backups-container/qbs-backup-2022-09-20-08-36-10.tar.gz?se=2022-09-27T21%3A11Z&sp=r&sv=2021-06-08&sr=b&sig=xAg1A%2FyXlMeTad9H7ub5asy1430NVWZMrnkahEz8fQg%3D"
    }
  ]
}

  • backupOperations lists the most recent backup operation, with previous backups listed in sequential order.

  • status indicates if the backup is in process, completed successfully, or failed.

  • uri provides the location where the completed backup is stored for retrieval.

danger

Download locations are valid for up to seven days after a backup is completed. Copy your backup to another location to retain a copy long term.

Restore your backup​

The backup file is stored as a tarball file in the format qbs-backup-YYYY-MM-DD-HH-SS.tar.

Extract the downloaded backup file to your computer by using a decompression utility that extracts .tar files. The file structure of the backup mirrors that of the GoQuorum data directory. You can use the file structure and files as-is in another GoQuorum installation to retrieve the backed up data.

note

QBS doesn't currently support the self-service of importing a previously backed up member into a new member. If you need to restore a backup to a new QBS member, open a support ticket.