2218169 - SuccessFactors Data Backup Procedures and Restore Process

• What is a data backup/restore recovery?
• Are costs involved to recover data?
• How to Request a Restore?
• Data Backup Procedures and Restore recovery

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SAP SuccessFactors HCM Suite

Where are the data center location?

Data center locations can be found by visiting the 'Data Center Locations' tab in the Trust Center. Alternatively, Trust Center can be contacted directly via the contact details on the same page.

Information regarding where the backup is stored can be checked in Trust Center Overview tab.

Why Request a Backup?

• It is strongly recommended to request a backup prior to major configuration changes or activities (KBA 2568976).
• NOTE: take Manual backups prior to making any imports or deletions that have the possibility of overwriting or deleting existing data.

Data Protection

• The SuccessFactors application is continually being backed up, primarily for data protection.
• Data is protected this way for both loss and corruption.
• The product is fully backed up to a point in time for both Production and Preview Data Centers.

Data Backup Procedures

• In the event a full restore of data is needed to a point in time, customers typically turn the system off to end users until the restore has been completed.
• SuccessFactors keeps up to 30 days worth backups of customer data.
• The Product takes a full database backup on a weekly basis, and incremental backups are taken daily.
• The goal is to have the ability to restore data at any point in time within the 30-day window.
• Every effort is made to fulfil requests to recover customer data due to customer or application error.
• Prior to requesting a restore from Operations, Customer Product Support will first evaluate all options to recover the data using other means (i.e. re-importing data or extracting data from the customer's test instance).
• Each restore request is evaluated on a case-by-case requests by Operations Management.
• For CPS: check internal memo on how to request the Backup process.

Note:

• The restore process is an entire instance restore! It is not possible to restore specific pieces of data into a live instance systematically. Customers should be aware that, once an entire copy of an instance is restored to a second instance, they will be responsible for extracting the data needed and for copying it back, if that is the case.
• A refresh is an irreversible process and as such, a restore is not an option after a refresh has been run.

Important: Learning Management (LMS) and BizX require separate restore requests to the dedicated module teams. Refer to KBA for LMS 2535588 and KBA for BizX 2568976.

Costs

• There are no costs required to request for an instance restore.
• Each restore request is evaluated on a case-by-case basis by Operations Management and SuccessFactors Product Support.

Turnaround Time

• It typically takes 5-10 business days to perform a restore of a company instance.
• More complex or very large instances can take longer.
• Business Impact will be taken into account.

How to Request a Restore

1. Determine if the data was lost within 30 days.

2. Make sure the data is not recoverable using other means.

• Do you have original copies of import files? (such as listed in the first section of this article)
• Does your test instance possibly have the data? (possible if you had cloned/refresh your production data into test for example)
• Can you simply reimport new data by:

• • Re-creating same data and manually uploading it to the system
  • Importing again from third part systems

Note: In such situations, customers must always evaluate other alternatives on top of Restore Process, you data can be faster recovered.  

3. Evaluate if data is to be restored in the same target tenant or in a new target tenant:

• By choosing the same target, our team will restore the data in the same company ID affected.
• By choosing a new target tenant, one of customers other tenants has to be provided (i.e. a test or development environment). Note that it will overwrite all the existing data in this target tenant. 
• NOTE: customers will need to specify if they want email masking to be done. By default, email masking will not be done, regardless if source and target company IDs are same or different. Customers should also provide a dummy email that they want to use instead of actual mails, if they want email masking done.
• In the case where the source and target company IDs are different - a restore follows the same process as an instance refresh because the restore acts as a full refresh using a past-dated backup of the source. Refer to KBA 2791468 - Instance Refresh Tool for BizX & LMS | Must-Know Guide & FAQ. In such cases, customers need to specify details like whether or not they want emails to be masked, attachments to be copied, data anonymization etc.

4. Create a Support case under component LOD-SF-PLT-BKP. All information provided will be used when opening an internal ticket with the Operations Team.

Be sure to provide ALL of the following information:

• • Detailed Business Impact
  • Source Company Instance
  • Target company instance (if we should restore in the same or in a different tenant)
  • Restore Date and Time (snapshot of the data and configuration that need to be restored)
  • Data Center
  • Customer approval

 Restore Process

1. 1. We will identify the database that needs to be restored (based on data center location of the company instance)
2. 2. Identify the Date and Time that it needs to be restored to. It is very important that we go back in time far enough to ensure the data we restore will contain the information needed.
   3. Determine the size of the database and amount of space needed for the restore.
   4. Work with the storage team to provision the storage for the restore.
   5. When the storage is available, restore the whole database to a separate temporary instance, if so requested.
3. 6. Customer is responsible for this step: Extract the data from the instance and import it into the production instance. The data may be recovered using the Export Functionalities available in the instance (KBA 2087990) and be imported back to the restored instance/environment after the restore process is completed.
   1. Note: This step is only done for data added after the restore point which the customer wishes to keep in the instance.

FAQs: 

Q:  Will the EC payroll data backup also be included in the BizX backup process request?

A: No, EC Payroll is a separate application, it's not a part of BizX backup request.

Q: Can we request a copy of the database backup file/data?

A: Database dumps, snapshots or backups cannot be provided as it contains internal proprietary data owned by SuccessFactors and thus violates several security guidelines. You can request for a restore instead

• KBA 2568976 - Instance Database Dump or Backup Request
• KBA 2535588 - Learning Management System - Data Backup Procedures and Restore Process
• KBA 2087990 - What Are the Options to Export or Extract all Our Data and Forms from the SuccessFactors Application?
• KBA 2482450 - SuccessFactors Disaster Recovery report
• KBA 2277508 - SuccessFactors Cloud Manual Instance Refresh Process & FAQ 
• KBA 2791468 - Instance Refresh Tool for BizX & LMS | Must-Know Guide & FAQ

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