Jira backups Native or XML?

Bruce Stedman (BSTEDMA1)

Hi Folks - this document seems to be contradicting itself:

https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/JIRA/Backing+Up+Data

It says that we should use our native tools when backing up the Jira DB (instead of XML Backups) however there is a caveat:

Caveat: if you are migrating your instance or performing an upgrade, please create an XML backup per the directions in this guide. Native tools run a much higher risk of failure and/or corruption if used for migration or disaster-recovery purposes.

We would obviouly want to use our Native DB tools to backup the DB and use that for any DR scenerio we might encounter. Is this not possible? Can anyone explain why using our Native DB backups would lead to a problem with data corruption?

Thanks!

Renjith Pillai

In case of migration of data from one server to another or database migration, an XML backup isolates from db specific issues.

From a regular backup point of view native backups are always preferred as the XML backups add to the load of the JIRA instance.