Explain Point-in-Time Recovery.
Point-in-time recovery (PITR) is a backup and restore technique that allows you to recover a database or system to an exact moment in the past.
When to Use
PITR is valuable when you need to undo human errors, roll back accidental data deletions, or recover from data corruption. It’s commonly used in databases like PostgreSQL and AWS RDS for mission-critical applications.
Example
If a developer mistakenly deletes all user profiles at 3:00 PM, PITR lets you restore the system back to 2:59 PM, preventing major data loss.
Explore more: Grokking System Design Fundamentals, Grokking the System Design Interview, Grokking Database Fundamentals for Tech Interviews or Mock Interviews with ex-FAANG engineers.
Why Is It Important
PITR minimizes data loss by ensuring your Recovery Point Objective (RPO) is nearly zero, helping businesses maintain continuity and user trust after failures.
Interview Tips
In interviews, explain PITR as a combination of base backups and log archiving. Highlight how it reduces RPO, and connect it to reliability and resilience—concepts interviewers look for.
Trade-offs
PITR provides granular recovery but requires extra storage for logs, careful log retention management, and may add some overhead to operations.
Pitfalls
Not retaining logs long enough, failing to test restores, or relying solely on PITR without periodic full backups can result in failed recovery when it matters most.
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