Gateway Channel Backups
Gateway configuration is all stored in the configuration database (usually CXN_AdvancedServices). The primary means of configuration backup is to run nightly backups of this database, or, to use a service which includes redundancy (such as AWS RDS).
This backup mechanism works well in cases where the database host fails catastrophically - an extremely rare scenario. Restoring a database can be take a few minutes and requires the Gateway to be offline, so it’s best to use this mechanism only when absolutely required.
Another backup option is to export all remote agents and channels in a system to a file. Importing a remote agent and channel file is faster than restoring from a backup, and more flexible (as you can pick and choose which items to restore). An additional perk to RA/channel backups is that you have a history of each RA/channel, and can easily import channels from previous snapshots.
A database restore is the preferred mechanism if the Gateway database is completely lost. Using the backup files to restore into a new Gateway install would require each remote integrator to be re-keyed - which is likely much slower than a database restore.
The Channel Backup feature uses a File Writer device under the covers, so files can be sent to many different targets, including long-term storage like S3 buckets.
Choose to backup all channels every night (Backup Every Night), or, only when a channel is changed (Backup Only When Changes Detected). Choose your target and optionally encrypt the channel file.