Serverless Application Backup via Automated Manifest Generation
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Serverless applications present challenges in data protection due to complex relationships between components, dynamic nature, and reliance on third-party vendors, making manual backup and restore operations tedious and error-prone, with no guarantee of consistent backups across changing conditions.
Innovation Solution
Automatically generating a manifest that identifies relationships between components of a serverless application, allowing for effective and automated backup and restore operations by understanding and coordinating the backup of backend services and application functions, even in dynamic environments.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If manual backup of serverless application components is performed, then backup coverage can be achieved, but the operation becomes tedious and error-prone
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs self-service by automatically discovering serverless application components, generating manifests, and coordinating backup operations without manual intervention. The backup system autonomously identifies functions, event sources, and backend services, then executes coordinated backups based on the generated manifest.
Solution Approach 2:
A manifest is introduced as an intermediary data structure that captures the relationships between serverless application components. This manifest serves as a blueprint that guides the backup process, enabling automated coordination without requiring manual specification of component relationships.
2Ease of manufacture
If third-party vendor orchestration is used for serverless applications, then deployment simplicity is improved, but backup consistency cannot be guaranteed
Solution Approach 1:
The manifest acts as an intermediary that bridges the gap between third-party vendor orchestration and backup operations. It captures the application's component relationships in a vendor-agnostic format, enabling consistent backups regardless of which vendor's orchestration service is used.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary action by generating the manifest before backup operations begin. This manifest pre-defines the backup sequence and component relationships, ensuring that when backup is needed, the system can execute consistently without relying on third-party orchestration guarantees.
3Reliability
If all backend services are backed up manually, then comprehensive coverage is achieved, but coordination with application functions becomes difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the backup process into distinct phases: manifest generation, component identification, and coordinated execution. By breaking down the complex task of backing up interconnected serverless components into manageable segments guided by the manifest, comprehensive coverage is achieved without overwhelming coordination complexity.
4Productivity
If serverless applications are packaged as stateless containers, then scaling is simplified, but understanding component relationships becomes difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The manifest serves as an intermediary that explicitly documents component relationships that would otherwise be implicit in the stateless container architecture. It captures event sources, functions, and backend service connections in a structured format, making relationships detectable and measurable without compromising the scalability benefits of stateless containers.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods for backing up and restoring serverless applications are provided. A serverless application is queried to identify the functions and services used. These functions and services are transformed into a manifest or graph that allows the relationships of the serverless application to be identified in an automated manner. The serverless application can be backed up and/or restored using the manifest.