Why are database backups important?
There are mainly 2 ways to backup your TrendMiner appliance data: taking a database backup or taking a VM snapshot.
A VM snapshot is more complete and mandatory before applying big configuration changes like an upgrade or changing to a different identity provider. But a database backup has some advantages over a VM snapshot too:
If after an upgrade we need to investigate issues we can easily compare database states from before and after the upgrade since both are available at the same time while typically only 1 VM snapshot can be active.
VM snapshots are typically cleaned up after X amount of time (e.g. 1 week). Database backups are saved in TrendMiner or an offline storage of your choice and are accessible for a longer period of time.
Database backups only contain crucial, user generated data, essential for disaster recovery while VM snapshots also contain index data which can be regenerated in a worst case scenario.
Caution
Important note for MLHub customers: database backups do not contain saved PMML models!