How often do you need to backup your tableau server ?

It depends.

If your users published a lot of workbooks to tableau server daily then maybe you should backup your tableau server daily.

If your users published a couple of workbooks to tableau server in a week then maybe you can backup once every week.

At the very least you should backup your tableau server every month.

1. Backup all twb / twbx files from everyone

No matter which backup schedule you choose, you should also have a centralized storage for your users to copy the original workbooks after they published it to tableau server. Then you should also backup this centralized storage so you have all the original workbook files (twb / twbx files). You may need these files when the server crash before the backup script runs.

2. backup all tableau server log files

These log files are very important for future tableau server troubleshooting and can also help you to benchmark tableau server performance when you use LogShark to transform these log files into performance dashboards. Tableau Support team will ask for this ziplogs file to help you in troubleshooting.

tsm maintenance ziplogs --all --with-postgresql-data --file tsZiplogs.zip

Check out all the available options for tsm maintenance ziplogs command here.

3. delete log files and temporary files

Deletes log files and temporary files to save more storage space for tableau server data.

tsm maintenance cleanup --all

Check out all the available options for tsm maintenance cleanup command here.

4. backup configuration, topology, data

What do you need to backup from tableau server so you can restore everything ?

A. Configuration and Topology data: includes most of the server configuration information required to fully recover a server. SMTP, alerting, some authentication assets, are all examples of configuration data that are exportable for backup. Topology data defines how your Tableau Server processes are configured in both single-server and multiple node deployments.

Backup these configuration and topology data with:

tsm settings export --output-config-file tsTopologyConfigBackup.json

Check out all the available options for tsm settings export command here.

B. Data managed by Tableau Server: consists of the Tableau PostgreSQL database or repository and File Store, which contains workbook and user metadata, data extract files, and site configuration data. When you use TSM to create a backup, all of this data is saved in a single file with a .tsbak extension. The Tableau Server must be up and running when you run the command so the backup file contains the PostgreSQL database, you can still run the backup when tableau server is stopped but then the backup file will not contain the PostgreSQL database. This PostgreSQL database repository is very important for restoring your server later because it contains Metadata such as user names, permissions, etc. So make sure you run the backup command when the server is up and running.

Backup all Data managed by Tableau server with:

tsm maintenance backup --file tsRepositoryFileStoreBackup.tsbak --append-date

Check out all the available options for tsm maintenance backup command here.

5. Use logshark to transform ziplogs into performance monitoring dashboards

Use LogShark to transform your ziplogs file into a set of dashboards that provide insights into system performance, content usage, and error investigation. You can use Logshark to visualize, investigate, and solve issues with your Tableau Server. LogShark dashboards can also be your performance benchmark to compared to when slowness happens. LogShark can be installed in desktop, laptop, VM so you definitely should install and use it.

Read more information here.

LogShark installation guide and user guide available here.

Summary

1. Copy all twb / twbx files into centralized storage and backup it.
2. Backup all log files with tsm maintenance ziplogs.
3. Delete log files and temporary files with tsm maintenance cleanup.
4. Backup configuration and topology data with tsm settings export.
5. Backup all data managed by Tableau Server with tsm maintenance backup.
6. Use LogShark to transform ziplogs log files into a set of performance monitoring dashboards.

All the tsm commands to run in sequential order:

tsm maintenance ziplogs --all --with-postgresql-data --file tsZiplogs.zip

tsm maintenance cleanup --all

tsm settings export --output-config-file tsTopologyConfigBackup.json

tsm maintenance backup --file tsRepositoryFileStoreBackup.tsbak --append-date

Happy New Year and Enjoy Today friends.