Recover a database or container from a recovery point

Azure Automatically takes encrypted backups of your data. These backups are taken in two modes, Periodic and Continuous backup modes.

In this lab, you’ll do backup and restores using the continuous backup mode. First, you’ll Create an Azure Cosmos DB account. You’ll then create two containers and add a few documents to them. Next, you’ll then update a couple of the documents in those containers. Finally you’ll create restores of the account to a point before each delete.

Create an Azure Cosmos DB for NoSQL account

Azure Cosmos DB is a cloud-based NoSQL database service that supports multiple APIs. When provisioning an Azure Cosmos DB account for the first time, you’ll select which of the APIs you want the account to support (for example, Mongo API or NoSQL API). Once the Azure Cosmos DB for NoSQL account is done provisioning, you can retrieve the endpoint and key. Use the endpoint and key to connect to the Azure Cosmos DB for NoSQL account programatically. Use the endpoint and key on the connection strings of the Azure SDK for .NET or any other SDK.

  1. In a new web browser window or tab, navigate to the Azure portal (portal.azure.com).

  2. Sign into the portal using the Microsoft credentials associated with your subscription.

  3. Select + Create a resource, search for Cosmos DB, and then create a new Azure Cosmos DB for NoSQL account resource with the following settings, leaving all remaining settings to their default values:

    Setting Value
    Subscription Your existing Azure subscription
    Resource group Select an existing or create a new resource group
    Account Name Enter a globally unique name
    Location Choose any available region
    Capacity mode Provisioned throughput
    Apply Free Tier Discount Do Not Apply
    Global Distribution TAB Disable Multi-region Writes

    📝 Note that you can enable Continuous (7-day) mode during the creation of the Azure Cosmos DB account, by selecting it under the Backup Policy tab. In this Lab you have the choice of enabling this feature during account creation or after the account is created in the optional section below. However, enabling the feature after the account is created could take longer than 5 minutes.

    📝 Note that Multi-regions write accounts are not currently supported for continuous backups.

    📝 Your lab environments may have restrictions preventing you from creating a new resource group. If that is the case, use the existing pre-created resource group.

Add a database and two containers to the account

Let’s create a database and a couple of containers.

  1. On the Azure portal, navigate to your Azure Cosmos DB account page.

  2. Under Data Explorer, add a new container with the following settings

    Setting Value
    Database id Create new name: Sales
    Share throughput across containers Do not select
    Container id customer
    Partition key /id
    Container throughput (400 - unlimited RU/s) Manual throughput: 400

  3. Under Data Explorer, add a new container with the following settings

    Setting Value
    Database id Use existing name: Sales
    Container id salesOrder
    Partition key /id
    Container throughput (400 - unlimited RU/s) Manual throughput: 400

Add items to the containers

Let’s add some documents to those containers.

  1. On the Azure portal, navigate to your Azure Cosmos DB account page.

  2. Under Data Explorer, add the following two documents to the customer container.

  {
    "id": "0012D555-C7DE-4C4B-B4A4-2E8A6B8E1161",
    "title": "",
    "firstName": "Franklin",
    "lastName": "Ye",
    "emailAddress": "franklin9@adventure-works.com",
    "phoneNumber": "1 (11) 500 555-0139",
    "creationDate": "2014-02-05T00:00:00",
    "addresses": [
      {
        "addressLine1": "1796 Westbury Dr.",
        "addressLine2": "",
        "city": "Melton",
        "state": "VIC",
        "country": "AU",
        "zipCode": "3337"
      }
    ],
    "password": {
      "hash": "GQF7qjEgMl3LUppoPfDDnPtHp1tXmhQBw0GboOjB8bk=",
      "salt": "12C0F5A5"
    }
  }

  {
    "id": "001C8C0B-9B91-47A5-A198-8770E60CFF38",
    "title": "",
    "firstName": "Victor",
    "lastName": "Moreno",
    "emailAddress": "victor8@adventure-works.com",
    "phoneNumber": "1 (11) 500 555-0134",
    "creationDate": "2011-10-09T00:00:00",
    "addresses": [
      {
        "addressLine1": "Parkstr 42",
        "addressLine2": "",
        "city": "Hamburg",
        "state": "HH ",
        "country": "DE",
        "zipCode": "20354"
      }
    ],
    "password": {
      "hash": "n8l+wY/klP/hwTC3wSr8BLMA9tm3tGTyDsCgG/Q9EYI=",
      "salt": "AC22BC8C"
    }
  }
  1. Under Data Explorer, add the following three documents to the salesOrder container.
  {
    "id": "000C23D8-B8BC-432E-9213-6473DFDA2BC5",
    "customerId": "0012D555-C7DE-4C4B-B4A4-2E8A6B8E1161",
    "orderDate": "2014-02-16T00:00:00",
    "shipDate": "2014-02-23T00:00:00",
    "details": [
      {
        "sku": "BK-R64Y-42",
        "name": "Road-550-W Yellow, 42",
        "price": 1120.49,
        "quantity": 1
      },
      {
        "sku": "HL-U509-B",
        "name": "Sport-100 Helmet, Blue",
        "price": 34.99,
        "quantity": 1
      }
    ]
  }

  {
    "id": "001676F7-0B70-400B-9B7D-24BA37B97F70",
    "customerId": "001C8C0B-9B91-47A5-A198-8770E60CFF38",
    "orderDate": "2013-06-02T00:00:00",
    "shipDate": "2013-06-09T00:00:00",
    "details": [
      {
        "sku": "HL-U509-R",
        "name": "Sport-100 Helmet, Red",
        "price": 34.99,
        "quantity": 1
      },
      {
        "sku": "BK-T79Y-50",
        "name": "Touring-1000 Yellow, 50",
        "price": 2384.07,
        "quantity": 1
      }
    ]
  }

  {
    "id": "0019092E-BD25-48F5-8050-7051B2655BC5",
    "customerId": "0012D555-C7DE-4C4B-B4A4-2E8A6B8E1161",
    "orderDate": "2013-09-14T00:00:00",
    "shipDate": "2013-09-21T00:00:00",
    "details": [
      {
        "sku": "TI-T723",
        "name": "Touring Tire",
        "price": 28.99,
        "quantity": 1
      },
      {
        "sku": "BK-T79Y-50",
        "name": "Touring-1000 Yellow, 50",
        "price": 2384.07,
        "quantity": 1
      },
      {
        "sku": "TT-T092",
        "name": "Touring Tire Tube",
        "price": 4.99,
        "quantity": 1
      }
    ]
  }

Change the default backup mode to continuous (Optional if feature not enabled during the account creation)

If you didn’t enable the feature during the Azure Cosmos DB account creation, you’ll need to do it now. Changing the backup mode is simple, all that is needed is to change one setting to On. Let’s change it now.

  1. On the Azure portal, navigate to your Azure Cosmos DB account page.

  2. Under the Settings, section, select Backup & Restore.

  3. Select Change next to Backup Policy mode, in the screen select the Continuous (7 Days) option and then select Save. Enabling this feature could take over five minutes.

    📝 Note that Multi-regions write accounts are not currently supported for continuous backups. If you did not disable Multi-region writes when you created your Azure Cosmos DB account, you will need to do it now or enabling the continuous backup feature will fail. You can disable multi-region writes unde the Replicate data globally Settings section.

Delete one of the salesOrder documents

  1. Under Data Explorer, run the following query to get the current date and time. Copy that timestamp to notepad. This Time stamp should be in UTC.

     SELECT GetCurrentDateTime ()

  2. Under Data Explorer, locate the salesOrder document with id 0019092E-BD25-48F5-8050-7051B2655BC5. Delete the Document, verify the document is no longer there.

Restore the database to the point before you deleted the salesOrder document

  1. On the Azure portal, navigate to your Azure Cosmos DB account page.

  2. Under the Settings section, select Point in Time Restore. Use the following settings:

    Setting Value
    Restore Point (UTC) Convert the date and time appropriately. The time will need to be in AM/PM format
    Location Selected an available location
    Select resources you would like to restore Selected database/containers
    Restore Resource salesOrder
    Restore Target Account choose a new Azure Cosmos DB account name

    📝 For Azure Cosmos DB restores, you never restore on top of and existing account, and will always have to create a new Azure Cosmos DB account.

    📝 While you could have chosen to restore the whole database or even the whole account, in a real production environment, the databases could be huge. In many scenarios it might be quicker to just restore the containers or the databases needed.

  3. This restore could take 15 minutes or more, go to the next section and leave this restore running in the background.

Delete the customer container

  1. Under Data Explorer, run the following query to get the current date and time. Copy that timestamp to notepad.

     SELECT GetCurrentDateTime ()

  2. Delete the customer container.

Restore the database to the point before you deleted the salesOrder document

  1. On the Azure portal, navigate to your Azure Cosmos DB account page.

  2. Under the Settings section, select Point in Time Restore. Use the following settings:

    Setting Value
    Location Selected an available location
    Restore Point (UTC) Convert the date and time appropriately. The time will need to be in AM/PM format
    Select resources you would like to restore Selected database/containers
    Restore Resource customer
    Restore Target Account choose a new Azure Cosmos DB account name

    📝 For Azure Cosmos DB restores, you never restore on top of and existing account, and will always have to create a new Azure Cosmos DB account.

    📝 While you could have chosen to restore whole database or even the whole accoount, in a real production environment, the databases could be huge. In many scenarios it might be quicker to just restore the containers or the databases needed.

  3. This restore could take 15 minutes or more, go to the next section and leave this restore running in the background.

Review the data restored

Restores can take a long time depending on the size of the database and other factors. Once the Azure Cosmos DB account restores are finished:

  1. For our first restore, make sure that the third document has been recovered.

  2. For the second restore, we should have restored the customer table.

Cleanup

  1. Delete the two new Azure Cosmos DB accounts that were created by the account restores.

  2. Delete the Sales database and if needed, delete the original Azure Cosmos DB account.