Back up all apps automatically?

Feature
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1

Am I missing a way to tell NS8 to back up “all apps” on a schedule? When I set up a backup schedule, I can “select all” to choose the apps to back up, but if I then install another app, I need to go back and add it to the backup schedule. It seems to me there’d be a box to check or some other way to say “back up everything to this destination.”

If there isn’t, any chance of adding this?

Removing application(s) makes scheduled backups fail when it was included
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Good point, and technically it’s a reasonable ask — a catch-all “backup all apps” schedule shouldn’t be too complex on the backend side. The frontend/UX side of it is @andre8244’s call though.

For more flexibility, we could also support an exclusion list instead: back up everything except these apps. That way new apps are covered by default, but you can still opt specific ones out.

3

Sure–options could then be “all apps,” “all except selected apps,” and “selected apps only.” Very much like how Proxmox does it (though of course with VMs/LXCs rather than apps). And I guess that really could be narrowed down to two, with “all except selected apps” functions as “all apps” if no apps are selected.

1 Like
4

The idea is certainly interesting, although we already have mechanisms in place to avoid forgetting to back up some apps:

  • “X applications not backed up” card on the Cluster status page
  • “Configure backup” notification that appears right after installing an app.

We also discussed this with our support and direct sales departments, but we aren’t sure if it’s worth the effort; backing up certain applications needs to be carefully considered (e.g., due to the storage space consumed on the backup destination), and there are scenarios where this mechanism might be inconvenient (for example, if I had chosen to back up all apps to a single destination, but then install a new one that I decide to exclude).

5

Right–you agree that not having a backup scheduled for any installed apps is a problem. So the logical next step is to allow (not force) the user to set a schedule that says, “whatever’s installed, back it up to this destination on this schedule.” Yes, there will be cases where that isn’t desirable–but I suspect they’ll be relatively rare.

Right now, you have only one option: “back up selected apps.” Yes, there’s a “select all” button, but of course that only selects what’s currently installed. This would add one other option: “back up all but selected apps” (and, of course, if the user didn’t select any, it would back up everything). This addresses both of the concerns you mentioned:

  • Suppose you have 8 apps installed, and there’s one particular one you don’t want backed up at the same time (or to the same destination) as the others - “all except selected,” and check that one app.
  • You have the same 8 apps, you want them all to back up at the same time and to the same place, so you’ve set “all except selected,” and checked none of them. Now you install a new one you want to exclude - edit that backup schedule, and check the newly-installed one.

Surely there will be cases where people will want to exclude apps from a backup schedule, but I don’t believe that’s the norm. Perhaps you have research suggesting otherwise, but I expect the large majority of users are running “back up everything at once.” And if I’m right in that, why not make it as easy as possible for them to do that?

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Like I said, we looped in other teams to discuss this, and at the moment, we’re not convinced the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. We’ll keep looking into the feature and see if we can come up with a compelling solution based on or inspired by your original idea.