Manage Your Backup Snapshots
While most Atlas snapshot operations are automated according to your backup policies, you can also:
View snapshots
Manually delete snapshots
Initiate on-demand snapshots between planned backups.
Required Access
To take or delete a backup snapshot, you must have Project Owner
access to the project. Users with Organization Owner
access must add themselves as a Project Owner
to the project before they can take or delete a backup snapshot.
To view backup snapshots, you must have Project Read Only access
to the project. Users with Organization Owner
access must add themselves as a Project Read Only access
to the project before they can view backup policies.
Delete a Backup Snapshot
Note
If you have a Backup Compliance Policy enabled, you can't delete a backup snapshot.
You can delete a snapshot using either the Atlas CLI or the Atlas UI. To delete all copies of a snapshot affected by a multi-region Snapshot Distribution policy without deleting the policy itself, delete the snapshot from its original region.
To delete the backup snapshot you specify using the Atlas CLI, run the following command:
atlas backups snapshots delete <snapshotId> [options]
To learn more about the command syntax and parameters, see the Atlas CLI documentation for atlas backups snapshots delete.
For non-sharded clusters, delete the snapshot programmatically with Remove One Replica Set Cloud Backup.
For sharded clusters, delete the snapshot programmatically with Remove One Sharded Cluster Cloud Backup.
To delete a snapshot from the Atlas UI, perform the following procedure:
In Atlas, go to the Clusters page for your project.
If it's not already displayed, select the organization that contains your desired project from the Organizations menu in the navigation bar.
If it's not already displayed, select your desired project from the Projects menu in the navigation bar.
If it's not already displayed, click Clusters in the sidebar.
The Clusters page displays.
Go to the Backup page for your cluster.
Click your cluster's name.
Click the Backup tab.
If the cluster has no Backup tab, then Atlas backups are disabled for that cluster and no snapshots are available. You can enable backups when you scale the cluster.
The Backup page displays.
Deleting the original snapshot by any of these methods will propagate the deletion to all copies of that snapshot.
View Backup Snapshots
To list cloud backup snapshots for your project and cluster using the Atlas CLI, run the following command:
atlas backups snapshots list <clusterName> [options]
To return the details for the snapshot you specify using the Atlas CLI, run the following command:
atlas backups snapshots describe <snapshotId> [options]
To learn more about the syntax and parameters for the previous commands, see the Atlas CLI documentation for atlas backups snapshot list and atlas backups snapshots describe.
Atlas displays existing snapshots for a given cluster on the Snapshots page. To view snapshots that Atlas has already taken:
In Atlas, go to the Clusters page for your project.
If it's not already displayed, select the organization that contains your desired project from the Organizations menu in the navigation bar.
If it's not already displayed, select your desired project from the Projects menu in the navigation bar.
If it's not already displayed, click Clusters in the sidebar.
The Clusters page displays.
Go to the Backup page for your cluster.
Click your cluster's name.
Click the Backup tab.
If the cluster has no Backup tab, then Atlas backups are disabled for that cluster and no snapshots are available. You can enable backups when you scale the cluster.
The Backup page displays.
Alternatively, to view a list of all M10+ clusters with
cloud backup enabled:
In Atlas, go to the Backup details for your project.
If it's not already displayed, select the organization that contains your project from the Organizations menu in the navigation bar.
If it's not already displayed, select your project from the Projects menu in the navigation bar.
In the sidebar, click Backup under the Security heading.
The Backup details display.
By default, Atlas displays both on-demand and policy-based snapshots. To view only policy-based snapshots:
Click Policy under View Snapshots by.
Alternatively, click On-demand to display only snapshots taken by clicking Take Snapshot Now.
Snapshots taken according to your backup policy display the frequency of
the policy item that generated the snapshot in the
Frequency column: Yearly, Monthly, Weekly,
Daily, or Hourly.
Note
If overlapping policy items generate the same snapshot, Atlas associates the snapshot with the policy item with the longest retention time.
For example, if the policy speficies a daily snapshot with two-day retention and a weekly snapshot every Saturday with three-week retention, then Atlas displays a frequency of Weekly in the Frequency column on the Snapshots page for the snapshot taken on Saturday and retains the snapshot for three weeks. This is because the weekly policy item has a longer retention time than the daily policy item.
You can change a zone's name in the Atlas UI. If you rename a zone, old snapshots' tooltip zone names aren't renamed.
Take On-Demand Snapshots
Atlas takes on-demand snapshots immediately, unlike scheduled
snapshots which occur at
regular intervals. If there is already an on-demand snapshot with
a status of queued or inProgress, you must wait until Atlas
has completed the on-demand snapshot before taking another. If there is
already a scheduled snapshot with a status of queued or
inProgress, you may queue an on-demand snapshot.
Note
If you have a Backup Compliance Policy enabled with a specified retention time for on-demand snapshots, you can't decrease the retention time for an on-demand snapshot after it's taken.
You must have the Organization Owner or
Project Owner role to successfully call these
endpoints.
To create a backup snapshot for your project and cluster using the Atlas CLI, run the following command:
atlas backups snapshots create <clusterName> [options]
To watch for a specific backup snapshot to become available using the Atlas CLI, run the following command:
atlas backups snapshots watch <snapshotId> [options]
To learn more about the syntax and parameters for the previous commands, see the Atlas CLI documentation for atlas backups snapshots create and atlas backups snapshots watch.
To take on-demand snapshots using the API, see Take One On-Demand Snapshot.
To take an on-demand snapshot:
In Atlas, go to the Clusters page for your project.
If it's not already displayed, select the organization that contains your desired project from the Organizations menu in the navigation bar.
If it's not already displayed, select your desired project from the Projects menu in the navigation bar.
If it's not already displayed, click Clusters in the sidebar.
The Clusters page displays.
To view an on-demand snapshot:
In Atlas, go to the Clusters page for your project.
If it's not already displayed, select the organization that contains your desired project from the Organizations menu in the navigation bar.
If it's not already displayed, select your desired project from the Projects menu in the navigation bar.
If it's not already displayed, click Clusters in the sidebar.
The Clusters page displays.
Go to the Backup page for your cluster.
Click your cluster's name.
Click the Backup tab.
If the cluster has no Backup tab, then Atlas backups are disabled for that cluster and no snapshots are available. You can enable backups when you scale the cluster.
The Backup page displays.
Note
The Take Snapshot Now button also appears on the Snapshots page for the cluster.