Accessing a database backup in a hosted environment

Duane Waite 3

Hello everyone!

I need to access some data we removed from our database a few months ago for a project I'm working on. At the time, we decided as a team that the data was unnecessary for fundraising purposes, but then an idea for a project was floated, and here I am today looking for a way to access that data again!

My idea was to contact Blackbaud and ask for a backup copy of our database from before the data was removed, but since our database is in a hosted environment, I wonder how accessing the backup is handled. Does Blackbaud temporarily host the database side by side with our production database? Do they send us a flat file that we would need to import? Or (I sincerely hope they don't do this) do they replace our production database with the backup, let us access the data we need, then put the production database back up?

Thanks, and yes, backing up the removed data would have been ideal, but I'm living and learning! -- Duane

Laura Easterly

Since you're hosted, could you have Blackbaud upload the backup copy to your test site?  This way you can access the information you need but don't have to lose anything that has been updated since the data was deleted.

Carrie Aranda

A little while back we had an issue that required us to get a backup file of our database and we are hosted.  It is a separate database that sits alongside our production database.  We were able to access the information and move it back into our production database.  Because it was due to our own actions and not something Blackbaud caused, it did cost us $200.