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The DBSnapper Cloud has Arrived

Joe Scharf

Joe Scharf

3 min read

Polaroid camera taking a picture of the postgresql logo and the resulting slide.

The DBSnapper Cloud has launched and extends the capabilities of our standalone CLI with new options for storing sanitized snapshots in private cloud storage and sharing them with your team. Up until now, each DBSnapper setup required creating a maintaining a local configuration file and snapshots were created on local storage, with no support for making them available in a centralized location.

The DBSnapper Platform

Traditionally, developers create fake fixture models of production data to simulate real-world usage of their web applications. The process of creating these development and test fixtures is painstaking, time-consuming, and error prone, resulting in brittle fixtures that require extensive maintenance and upkeep.

DBSnapper solves this problem, allowing developers to safely use production data in their daily development and testing activities. DBSnapper automates the process of creating snapshots of your production database, removing the sensitive data, and loading the snapshots into your development environment.

Centralized Target Configurations

Configuring the DBSnapper Agent for the Cloud can be accomplished with a single authentication command and instantly makes your target definitions available to other development environments, PaaS instances, or services as you deem fit. Once this is configured,  your cloud targets will be listed alongisde any standalone targets you've defined. The commands to build, sanitize, and load snapshots work the same, regardless of whether they're standalone or cloud configured.

Bring your own Buckets

Storing your database snapshots on local storage limits the flexibility and availabililty of these snapshots. Sharing them with other development environments requires cumbersome transfer steps, and storing them for the long-term can be an issue when storage is limited or instances are ephemeral. Handing your production data over to a third party to solve these problems is not always the smartest idea either.

Polaroid camera taking a picture of the postgresql logo and the resulting slide.

Storage Profiles - Bring your own private cloud storage

DBSnapper Storage Profiles let you use your own private cloud storage services, maintaining your control over your snapshotted data. When a Storage Profile is attached to a Target definition, snapshots are automatically stored and retrieved from your private cloud storage locations by the DBSnapper Agent. No longer does a snapshot need to exist locally before it can be used in development, storage profiles automate retrieval and loading of the data from the cloud - your cloud.

On Prem? No Problem

The DBSnapper Agent has always been compatible with Mac, Linux, and Windows operating systems. Using DBSnapper on premises, or in your own private cloud in standalone mode has been the normal course of operations from the start. With the DBSnapper cloud, you have the ability to control the amount of third-party access to your data. Target definitions that specify account credentials used to access your data are stored encrypted in the DBSnapper Cloud. Storge Profiles let you specify your own private cloud storage locations for long-term storage and sharing of you snapshots.

Get Started for Free

We're excited to announce these changes to DBSnapper and encourage you to sign up for the DBSnapper cloud today. Standalone mode is always free, and you can add DBSnapper Cloud capabilities any time and gain advantages of increased flexibility, sharing, and security for your sanitized database snapshots. As always, if you have questions and would like to get in touch, contact us today!