Heroku transfer db from one app to another

Question

I need to transfer db from app_1 to app_2

I created backup on app_1

Then ran:

heroku pg:backups restore HEROKU_POSTGRESQL_COLOR --app app_2 heroku

Answer 1

You may find useful pgAdmin III (http://pgadmin.org/), a free db management tool specifically designed to do these types of tasks. You can edit/view/import/export from/to your Heroku db directly. Let me know if you need help in setup. (It's like MySQL Workbench, but for PostgreSQL).

Answer 2

There are simple ways to do this, and there is a fast way to do it

The simple ways generally involve using a backup/restore methodology (including pg:copy, which is a backup that streams the data directly to a pg_restore process), but these are slow in creating the new database because you are restoring a logical definition of tables, loading the data, and creating indexes on the data.

That's a lot of work, and for my 30GB standard-2 databases it can literally take hours.

The fast way to do it is to provision a follower of the database to be copied (e.g. production) on the application you want the data on (e.g. test). On the same 30GB databases that take hours to do a restore, this last took about 15 minutes.

The methodology I use is:

# Get the name of the source database addon (e.g. postgresql-clean-12345)
heroku pg:info -a production-app

# Create a follower on the destination app (choose your own plan)
# You create the follower on the new app because otherwise it is 
# perpetually associated with the source as it's "billing app"
heroku addons:create heroku-postgresql:standard-2 --follow postgresql-clean-12345 -a test-app
heroku pg:wait -a test-app

# Quiesce the destination app
heroku scale web=0 worker=0 -a test-app
heroku maintenance:on -a test-app

# Get the colour of the new database (e.g. HEROKU_POSTGRESQL_GRAY_URL)
heroku pg:info -a test-app

# Unfollow the source database.
# If you want to upgrade the database, do that now instead of the
# unfollow.
heroku pg:unfollow HEROKU_POSTGRESQL_GRAY_URL -a test-app

# Promote the new database on the destination app
heroku pg:promote HEROKU_POSTGRESQL_GRAY_URL -a test-app

# Get the colour of the old database, if any(e.g. HEROKU_POSTGRESQL_MAROON_URL)
heroku pg:info -a test-app

# Destroy the old database (if any)
heroku addons:destroy HEROKU_POSTGRESQL_MAROON_URL -a test-app

# Bring the test app back up
heroku scale web=1 worker=1 -a test-app
heroku maintenance:off -a test-app

Why is this faster?

I believe that when creating a follower, Heroku creates the new database by either copying data files or restoring from a physical (file) backup, then replaying the logs to bring it up to date.