Restore only what matters: Clumio Backtrack for DynamoDB

Amazon DynamoDB is the backbone of countless cloud-native applications, celebrated for its immense scalability and performance. As organizations build increasingly mission-critical systems on this NoSQL database, the conversation naturally shifts to the shared responsibility model and the critical need for robust data protection.

Initially, enterprises relied on two primary native options for protecting their DynamoDB data: DynamoDB Point-in-Time Recovery (PITR) and AWS Backup. While functional, both came with limitations that created gaps in security and cost-efficiency.

Analyzing the Limitations of Native Backup Tools

A deeper analysis of the native tools reveals the foundational problems that needed to be solved:

• DynamoDB PITR: A Trade-Off Between Precision and Risk
  Traditional PITR offers recovery precision, allowing restores to any point in time. However, it possessed a critical architectural limitation: ‌Backups are inextricably tied to the source table. If the original table is deleted, whether accidentally or maliciously, the PITR backup is also permanently lost. This dependency creates a single point of failure for data restoration. PITR also doesn’t support cross-account restores, which limits options in the event of an account compromise.
  
  
• AWS Backup: Convenience at a Cost
  AWS Backup offers the convenience of managed backups and keeps copies logically separate from the source table. However, the trade-offs are increased cost and security exposure. AWS Backup relies on repeated full backups, driving up the total cost of ownership (TCO) as data volumes grow. Furthermore, these backups are typically stored within the same enterprise security sphere as the primary data, making them vulnerable during wider security events.

A New Foundation: Solving the Core Problem with Clumio SecureVault for DynamoDB

Addressing these gaps required a new approach. In 2022, Clumio launched SecureVault for DynamoDB, a solution engineered to solve these specific problems. It introduced a new foundation for DynamoDB data protection by delivering:

• True air-gapped, immutable protection: SecureVault stores backups in a separate secure platform fully isolated from the primary AWS environment. This eliminates the risk of backup loss if the source table is compromised or deleted.
  
  
• “Incremental Forever” cost efficiency: To combat the high TCO of repeated full backups, SecureVault introduced a forever incremental model. After an initial backup, it only saves unique data changes on an ongoing basis.

The impact was immediate and tangible. One prominent customer in the online learning space slashed DynamoDB backup spending by over 70% by switching to Clumio, while also improving its security posture. SecureVault effectively solved the foundational data protection problem.

The Next Frontier: The Pain of Partition-Level Recovery

While SecureVault solved the table-level issue, evolving architectural best practices exposed a new, more painful challenge. Modern SaaS applications often rely on a single, massive DynamoDB table that serves thousands of tenants, with each tenant’s data isolated by a set of partition keys.

Now, imagine this nightmare scenario: A minor code change in a rolling software update introduces a bug. The bug doesn’t corrupt the entire table. It affects only two or three tenant partitions within a massive 100-terabyte table that holds billions of records.

Recovering from this with traditional methods creates a significant operational burden:

• Step 1: The expensive full table restore.
  The process begins by restoring the entire table to a new, temporary one. This means provisioning and paying for another 100 TB of storage and waiting hours‌ – ‌or even days‌ – ‌for the data to be copied, just to recover a few gigabytes of corrupted data. The recovery time objective is immediately compromised.
  
  
• Step 2: The agonizing manual sift.
  With the temporary table online, engineers must now write and run complex ETL scripts to scan through billions of items. Their mission is to extract data from just the affected partitions, a process that is both incredibly time-consuming and dangerously error-prone. One mistake in the script could lead to further data loss.
  
  
• Step 3: The redundant repeat.
  If different partitions were corrupted at different times, the entire process of restoring and sifting must be repeated for each unique timestamp, compounding the cost and engineering toil.
  
  
• Step 4: The high-risk cleanup .
  Once the data is copied back to the production table, engineers must remember to manually delete the temporary 100 TB tables. Overlooking this step can lead to catastrophic storage costs.

This recovery method is not just inefficient; it’s a high-risk, high-cost engineering project that burns developer hours and puts the business at risk.

Introducing Clumio Backtrack: From Agony to Simplicity

Clumio Backtrack for DynamoDB builds on the SecureVault foundation to eliminate this recovery complexity. It transforms what used to be a multi-day engineering crisis into a simple, minutes-long operational task by delivering three key capabilities:

• Recovery granularity: Restore only what you need.
  Backtrack allows engineers to target only the specific partition keys that were affected. Instead of restoring hundreds of terabytes, it isolates the few gigabytes of data required. This completely eliminates the cost, time, and overhead of restoring a full table, providing an almost-instantaneous start to the recovery.
  
  
• Recovery precision: Go back to the exact moment.
  For each targeted partition, Backtrack enables a restore to any point in time, precise to the second. This lets teams restore to the exact state before the corruption without losing any data, preserving integrity without the manual guesswork.
  
  
• In-place recovery: Restoration simplified.
  This is the most critical innovation. Backtrack restores the corrected data directly into the live production table. There are no temporary tables to create, no custom scripts to write, and no cleanup to manage. The multi-day, high-risk data migration project is replaced by a few clicks in an intuitive UI. 

The foundational cost efficiency and security of SecureVault laid the groundwork. With Backtrack adding surgical precision and in-place recovery, the combined solution reaches far beyond the limits of any native tools.

As DynamoDB evolves from a simple, scalable database into the backbone of complex, partitioned applications, recovery needs have shifted radically. Native tools fall short in this new reality.

Clumio SecureVault addresses the initial need for air-gapped security and cost-efficient backups. However, as recovery requirements became more granular, the operational complexity of table-level restores became untenable. 

Building on the foundational protection of SecureVault, Clumio Backtrack provides surgical, in-place recovery that allows organizations to move beyond the limitations of native tools. Together, they form a comprehensive solution that helps modern businesses implement a truly modern, simple, and resilient data protection strategy for their most critical DynamoDB workloads. Get a free trial today.