External Backups/Snapshots for Google Cloud Spanner

Question

Is it possible to snapshot a Google Cloud Spanner Database/table(s)? For compliance reasons we have to have daily snapshots of the current database that can be rolled back to in

Answer 1

As of July 2018, Cloud Spanner now offers Import and Export functionality which allows you to export a database into Avro format. If you go to the specific Cloud Spanner database in question via the Google Cloud Console website, you will see Import and Export buttons toward the top. Simply click Export, populate the requested information such as a destination Google Cloud Storage bucket, and the database will be backed-up in Avro format to Google Cloud Storage. If you need to restore a database, use the corresponding Import functionality from the Cloud Spanner section of the Google Cloud Console website.

Note: The actual backup and restore (i.e., export and import) are done using Google Cloud Dataflow and you will be charged for the dataflow operation.

See the documentation for Import and Export functionality.