Backup and Disaster Recovery in Azure Service Fabric

Backup and Disaster Recovery in Service Fabric

No system is immune to failures. A solid Backup and Disaster Recovery (DR) plan ensures that even in case of catastrophic events, your critical data and services can be restored quickly and safely.

💾 What Needs Backup in Service Fabric?

• Stateful service data (important user or business information).
• Application configurations (manifests, secrets, certificates).
• Cluster configuration (especially for Standalone or Production clusters).

Real-World Analogy:

Think of a Backup as making photocopies of important documents and keeping them in a fireproof safe — just in case something happens to the originals!

🛡️ Built-in Backup Features in Service Fabric

1. Reliable Collections Backup

• Service Fabric automatically provides Stateful Services with APIs to backup their reliable collections (key-value stores).
• You can perform Full or Incremental backups.

2. Backup/Restore Service

• Service Fabric provides an optional Backup and Restore Service (BRS) that automates backups for stateful services.
• Configure policies for periodic backups (hourly, daily, etc.).
• Stores backups on Azure Blob Storage or File Share.

🚀 Step-by-Step: How to Enable Backups

Step 1: Implement Backup APIs in Your Service

Override the following methods inside your Stateful Service:

protected override Task BackupAsync(BackupAsyncCallbackArgs backupArgs)
{
    // Code to save backup to external storage
}
    

Service Fabric will call this automatically during backup!

Step 2: Deploy Backup Restore Service (BRS)

• Deploy BackupRestoreService application from Azure Marketplace or ARM templates.
• Configure the BackupPolicy through Service Fabric Explorer.

Step 3: Configure Backup Policy

• Set Frequency: e.g., Every 1 Hour.
• Retention Policy: e.g., Keep last 10 backups.
• Backup Storage: Azure Blob or File Share.

🛠️ Example Backup Policy

{
  "Name": "OrderServiceBackup",
  "Schedule": {
    "Frequency": "Hour",
    "Interval": "1"
  },
  "Storage": {
    "StorageKind": "AzureBlobStore",
    "ConnectionString": "DefaultEndpointsProtocol=https;AccountName=...;",
    "ContainerName": "orderbackups"
  },
  "RetentionPolicy": {
    "RetentionType": "NumberOfBackups",
    "RetentionCount": "10"
  }
}
    

🔄 Disaster Recovery Process (Restore)

Step 1: Select Backup

In Service Fabric Explorer, find the partition → choose backup → click Restore.

Step 2: Restore to Same or New Service

You can restore backups:

• To the same application (rollback).
• To a different cluster (migration or disaster recovery).

💡 Did You Know?

⚡ Common Backup and Restore Problems and Solutions

• Problem: Backup failed due to storage permissions.
  Solution: Ensure correct access rights on Azure Blob or File Share.
• Problem: Restore not showing backup files.
  Solution: Verify correct backup paths and retention policies.
• Problem: Service version mismatch after restore.
  Solution: Ensure application manifests match during recovery.

🚨 Best Practices for Backup and Disaster Recovery

• Schedule automatic periodic backups.
• Test restoring backups in a test cluster periodically.
• Encrypt backup data for extra protection (especially in financial/healthcare sectors).
• Document your DR plan and recovery steps clearly.

✅ Self-Check Quiz

• What are two types of backups supported?
• Where can Service Fabric store backup data?
• What are the key steps in restoring a service backup?