Point In Time Restore vs Log Shipping

Developers should learn and use PITR when building or managing applications that require high data availability and minimal data loss, such as financial systems, e-commerce platforms, or healthcare databases meets developers should learn log shipping when building or maintaining mission-critical applications that require robust data protection and minimal downtime, such as financial systems, e-commerce platforms, or healthcare databases. Here's our take.

Point In Time Restore

Nice Pick

Developers should learn and use PITR when building or managing applications that require high data availability and minimal data loss, such as financial systems, e-commerce platforms, or healthcare databases

Pros

• It is essential for meeting Recovery Point Objective (RPO) requirements, enabling recovery to seconds before an incident, and is commonly implemented in relational databases like PostgreSQL, MySQL, and SQL Server for disaster recovery scenarios
• Related to: database-backup, transaction-logs

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

Log Shipping

Developers should learn Log Shipping when building or maintaining mission-critical applications that require robust data protection and minimal downtime, such as financial systems, e-commerce platforms, or healthcare databases

Pros

• It is particularly useful for scenarios where real-time synchronization is not mandatory but near-real-time data availability is needed for disaster recovery, as it provides a cost-effective alternative to more complex solutions like database mirroring or Always On Availability Groups
• Related to: sql-server, database-backup

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

The Verdict

These tools serve different purposes. Point In Time Restore is a concept while Log Shipping is a methodology. We picked Point In Time Restore based on overall popularity, but your choice depends on what you're building.

The Bottom Line

Point In Time Restore wins

Based on overall popularity. Point In Time Restore is more widely used, but Log Shipping excels in its own space.