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Ops Manager Overview

MongoDB Ops Manager can automate, monitor, and back up your MongoDB infrastructure.

Automation

Ops Manager Automation enables you to configure and maintain MongoDB nodes and clusters.

"Automation coordinates MongoDB instances running in a public cloud, in your private data center, or on your local system."

MongoDB Agents using Automation on each MongoDB host can maintain your MongoDB deployments. You can install the MongoDB Agent. Automation can add hosts and deploy and upgrade new or existing clusters.

Monitoring

Ops Manager Monitoring provides real-time reporting, visualization, and alerting on key database and hardware indicators.

How Monitoring Works

When you activate Monitoring on a MongoDB host, Monitoring collects statistics from the nodes in your MongoDB deployment. The Agent transmits database statistics back to Ops Manager to report deployment status in real time. You can set alerts on indicators you choose.

Backup

Ops Manager Backup provides scheduled snapshots and point-in-time recovery of your MongoDB replica sets and sharded clusters.

How Backup Works

When you activate Backup for a MongoDB deployment, Backup takes snapshots of data from the MongoDB processes you have specified.

Note

Only sharded clusters or replica sets can be backed up. To back up a standalone mongod process, you must convert it to a single-member replica set.

Backup Workflow

Backups rely upon the MongoDB version compatibility of your database. This Feature Compatibility Version ranges from the current version to one version earlier. For MongoDB 4.2, the FCV can be 4.0 or 4.2.

Once backup has started, Ops Manager backs up the data as an ongoing and continuous process. This process continues creating snapshots as long as the head database remains synchronized with the database.

This process works like replica set data synchronization.

The backup process:

  1. Performs an initial sync to back up all of your existing data in its current state. In sharded clusters, this occurs on each shard and on the config servers.
  2. Takes snapshots of the data directory in a deployment as often as your snapshot schedule specifies and then transfers the snapshots to a storage system.
  3. Monitors the oplog constantly and adds new database operations to the latest backup to keep the local Ops Manager copy of the data to allow point-in-time restores.

The MongoDB Agent then tails each replica set’s oplog to maintain on disk a standalone database, called a head database. Ops Manager maintains one head database for each backed-up replica set. The head database stays consistent with the original primary up to the last oplog that the MongoDB Agent supplies.

The backup process takes a snapshot of the data directory at its scheduled snapshot intervals.

This process copies the data files in a MongoDB deployment, sending them over the network via Ops Manager to your existing snapshot storage.

Your deployment can still handle read and write operations during the copying process.

With the new backup process, there are no longer initial syncs. As a result of not having initial syncs, Ops Manager (using a mongod running FCV 4.2) can support a wider array of customers such as those heavily using renameCollection.

The MongoDB Agent uses WiredTiger’s incremental backup cursor to capture the incremental changes.

The backup process works in this manner regardless of how snapshots are stored.

Backup uses a MongoDB instance version equal to or greater than the version of the replica set it backs up.

Backup takes and stores snapshots based on a user-defined snapshot retention policy. Sharded cluster snapshots temporarily stop the balancer. The snapshots then can insert a marker token into all shards and config servers in the cluster. Ops Manager takes a snapshot when the marker tokens appear in the snapshot data.

How much storage capacity you need depends on both the number of snapshots and the type of snapshot storage you choose. The following table outlines the differences in snapshot stores:

Snapshot Store Description
MongoDB blockstore Only the differences between each successive snapshot are stored. Compression and block-level deduplication reduce the size of snapshot data.
AWS S3 bucket Only the differences between each successive snapshot are stored. Compression and block-level deduplication reduce the size of snapshot data.
File system store Depending on the configuration, compression reduces the size of the snapshot data.

All snapshots represent a full backup.

Ops Manager can back up data as a full or incremental backup. Ops Manager requires a full backup:

  • For your first backup,
  • After a snapshot has been deleted, and
  • If the blockstore block size has been changed.

Incremental backups reduce network transfer and storage costs.

To learn more about how to configure backups, see Backup Configuration Options.

Restore Data

Backup can restore data from a complete scheduled snapshot or from a selected point between snapshots.

You can restore sharded clusters and replica sets from selected points in time.

When you restore from a snapshot, Ops Manager reads directly from the snapshot storage. You can restore the snapshot:

  • To another cluster or
  • Download the snapshot files from an HTTPS link.

When you restore from a checkpoint or point in time, Ops Manager restores a full snapshot from the snapshot storage. Ops Manager then applies stored oplogs until it reaches the specified point. Ops Manager delivers the snapshot and oplog updates using the same HTTPS mechanisms. To enable checkpoints, see Enable Cluster Checkpoints.

You can configure how much of the oplog you want to keep per backup. This affects how much time a checkpoint and point-in-time restore can cover.

When you restore from a point in time, Ops Manager restores a full snapshot from the snapshot storage. Ops Manager then applies stored oplogs until it reaches the specified point. Ops Manager delivers the snapshot and oplog updates using the same HTTPS mechanisms.

You can configure how much of the oplog you want to keep per backup. This affects how much time a point-in-time restore can cover.