Difference Between Backup and Recovery

Backup and Recovery are terms related to data protection. An efficient backup and recovery schemes are crucial for any organization for protecting the valuable data of its organization. However, backup and recovery are different concepts where a backup is storing a copy of the entire data of the database or database onto storage devices. Conversely, recovery is the technique of restoring the lost data from the storage mediums which have been backed up.

Content: Backup Vs Recovery

1. 1. Comparison Chart
   2. Definition
   3. Key Differences
   4. Conclusion

Comparison Chart

Basis for comparison	Backup	Recovery
Basic	Stored copy of the original data at a different location.	Process of restoring the lost data.
Defined	According to the data set to be copied	Based on the recovery time for the data.

Definition of Backup

The term backup comes along with data protection which means the copies of virtual and physical systems, along with the data and application installed in those systems. Backups can be compared with an insurance policy against something that might occur in future. The prior goal of the backup is to just keep a copy of the IT helps in making business.

The frequency of creating backup can vary according to the priority of the data such as if the data is very valuable then it should be daily backed up. Monthly and quarterly backup is the same as the backup taken on a daily basis but it is just done on the last day of the month or quarter.

These days with the advancement in the technology the backup is created over cloud as it is very viable storage and straight forward management.

Definition of Recovery

Recovery system for the databases is a crucial part of a Database Management System or information system, which ensures the data consistency even after a failure. Whenever a transaction takes place which is rendered to the DBMS for execution, the system is responsible for assuring the completion of the transaction operations, recording the results in the database on a permanent basis and independency of the transactions with each other and with databases too.

However, if any of the transaction fails in the middle of some operations, then what is going to happen? In these situations is data recovery is a crucial task and is the only way to save the lost data.

Here the failure could be in any way like system crash, transaction error, exception conditions, disk failure, catastrophes, or concurrency control enforcement. Any of the scenario causing downtime would need recovery. There are several recovery processes such as caching, shadowing, before and after images of data item, Steal/no-steal and force/no-force policies, UNDO vs REDO recovery, etcetera.

Conclusion

Backup provides an ability to recover while recovery is intended to ensure the atomicity of the transaction and data.