Bitbucket is one of the most popular Git-compatible hosting services run by Atlassian. Users choose it for the ease of integration with other Atlassian products, including Jira, Confluence, and other tools to make development, operation, product, and project management teams work easier and simplify their communication.
Moreover, companies store in Bitbucket the most valuable asset they have – their source code. So, what if something goes wrong? What if suddenly strikes an outage or other failure, and they lose access to their Bitbucket account? It can lead to data loss, business disruption, and financial and reputation issues.
To make sure that their Bitbucket data, including code repositories, pull requests, Wiki pages, project metadata, issues, and comments, is accessible and recoverable, companies can adopt different backup methods, which we are going to cover in the following article.
Importance of backing up Bitbucket repositories for data protection
Protect against data loss and accidental deletion
The recent media headings are constantly threatening us with data breaches, outages, ransomware, cyber-attacks, or human errors, like unintentional deletion, etc. For example, in May 2024 there was news in Bleeping Computer that threat actors managed to breach “AWS accounts using authentication secrets leaked as plaintext in Atlassian Bitbucket artifact objects”. A bit scary, yeah? So, backup is important to ensure the organization’s business continuity in case of disasters or outages.
More cases concerning data breaches, vulnerabilities, and other cyber-related issues you can find in the State of DevOps Threats Report, where we have covered the biggest DevOps security challenges and the top security practices for 2024:
Meet the Shared Responsibility Model requirements
Well, as you understood, the first reason is vulnerabilities and ever-evolving threats. The second one comes from it… If you think that it is the responsibility of a SaaS provider to ensure your account data security, you are wrong. Atlassian operates within the Cloud Security Shared Responsibility Model, which clearly identifies the responsibilities of both parties – the service provider and the user’s.
Atlassian Cloud Security Shared Responsibility Model states that the service provider takes care of the security of its service and infrastructure, while the user is responsible for the security of its Bitbucket account data.
Source: Atlassian Cloud Security Shared Responsibilities
Meet compliance requirements for data protection and security
And, finally, we shouldn’t forget about compliance, legal, and other organizational requirements for data protection and security. To meet compliance needs you need to follow security compliance best practices, which include robust security controls, a risk assessment plan, and a reliable backup and Disaster Recovery strategy.
Key features to look for in a Bitbucket backup tool
Before we jump at analyzing Bitbucket backup options, we need to have a clear view of the backup process and what your backup for Bitbucket should include. Well, a Bitbucket backup is a copy of your repository data, including source code, issues, comments, and pull requests, stored separately from your primary Bitbucket instance. And we need to protect all the Bitbucket data, including both source code and metadata. Thus, it’s important that your Bitbucket backup covers all the metadata needed for a smooth run of your workflow processes.
Backup performance: which backup features are a must-have?
Full data coverage isn’t the only necessary backup measure you should look for. Among the other backup best practices are:
- automated backups with flexible scheduling options, as it permits your DevOps to concentrate on their core duties, knowing that the backup copy will be performed at a definite time without their interference.
- storage compatibility, as you may need to keep your data both in the Cloud or on-premise. That’s why your backup provider should allow you to store your data in the place of your choice.
- the 3-2-1 backup rule, which assumes that you have at least 3 copies of your data in more than 2 different storage destinations with one offsite. To let you follow this rule, your backup provider should allow multi-storage compatibility (Clod and On-premise).
- long-term or even unlimited retention, as sometimes to meet some strengthened compliance requirements you need to keep your data for a long time.
- scalable architecture, which will allow to backup of large Bitbucket repositories and infrastructures.
Ransomware protection features
Backup is a final line of protection. And, thus, your backup option should have security measures to protect your Bitbucket data. It should provide with:
- AES-256 encryption in flight and at rest, which will help to protect your valuable Bitbucket data during the backup process. What’s more, you should have a =n option to set your own encryption key to strengthen your data security.
- WORM-compliance storage, so that if ransomware hits your storage instance, it won’t spread infecting other data in the storage.
- limited access to storage credentials to prevent unauthorized access and protect your storage from potential attacks.
Restore and DR features
Bitbucket backups are essential for protecting against data loss, and accidental deletion, and ensuring business continuity. But what is backup without the possibility of restoring your data immediately? Thus, your backup solution should allow you to quickly recover your data in the event of failure.
Thus, it should permit you to restore your data from any point in time fully or granularly to the same or a new Bitbucket account, to your local machine, or cross-overly to another Git hosting service, like GitHub, or GitLab.
Different options to back up your Bitbucket Cloud or Data Center
First, let’s look at the options Atlassian describes in its documentation – Bitbucket Zero Downtime backup and Bitbucket DIY backup, and then, precede to other variants such as Bitbucket backup script and third-party backup tools.
Bitbucket export option
The easiest way to have a copy of your Bitbucket repository is to export it from your Bitbucket instance to your local machine. It’s hard to call a backup yet it permits you to have a zip file of your Bitbucket repository somewhere outside your Bitbucket account.
This process is manual, so if you have a large number of repositories, it will take time and will need a lot of attention from your side, as you will need to download one repository after another. So, to export your repository, you will need to go to your Git repo that you need to export. There in the right corner, click “More” and pick up “Download repository”. That’s it, then you will need only to save it in the appropriate place on your local machine.
Bitbucket Zero Downtime backup
Before we start describing this option, we need to mention that the Zero downtime backup was introduced in Bitbucket 4.8. It means that if you have a Bitbucket version 4.7 or less this technique won’t suit you.
Using Bitbucket Zero Downtime Backup, you can back up your Bitbucket instance as frequently as you need within your policy without any maintenance lock. So that this backup technique works well, you need to have a shared home directory on your file system for atomic snapshots. As this will allow your database to take snapshots or restore a snapshot simultaneously with the home directory snapshot.
Bitbucket DIY Backup
You can go with Bitbucket DIY Backup in case you use Bitbucket Server, Bitbucket Data Center, or Bitbucket Mesh instances. With this technique, you will be able to back up your Git repositories, the database to which your instance is connected, Bitbucket Server logs, and plugins, including their data.
Well, to perform this kind of backup you will need to perform a consequence of actions:
- prepare your instance for backup – at this stage, the initial snapshot will be taken to reduce downtime and data loss.
- initiate your Bitbucket backup – during this step, your instance will be locked, and the connections to the filesystem and database should be drained and latched.
- finish the Bitbucket backup process – here your instance will be finally unlocked.
- archive your copies – at this final stage, you will have all your backup files archived and the system will create one big archive.
For this technique, you can use any language you want to customize your processes. Thus, you can use as your database’s incremental tools or fast snapshot ones, as the specific tools of your file server.
Bitbucket backup script
You may decide to build your own backup script to perform backups and entrust your DevOps team to initiate all the backup processes manually. First, it may work well, yet from a long-term perspective, it will eat into your dedicated DevOps team’s time, distracting them from their core duties. You shouldn’t forget that the number of backup copies will grow day after day and handling them can be rather time-consuming.
What’s more, here a human factor will play a big role, and the possibility of a human mistake can increase, which can lead to a failed backup process and data loss.
Bitbucket Git Clone – is it a backup?
One may say that Git cloning is the same as backup… but they are wrong. Cloning allows only to have a copy of data, but can it guarantee instant recovery in case of a failure? Or can it ensure business continuity? Or does it align with compliance requirements? There are doubts.
Git clone command-line script
Another option is to download your Bitbucket repository using a git clone command. For that, you need to have a terminal with Git installed on it. If you have it, you can use:
bash
git clone <link to your repository><directory (place the repository should be downloaded to)>
This method is simple, however like the Bitbucket export option, it’s very manual, and if you have a big infrastructure with multiple repositories, it can distract your team a lot from their main task – writing the source code.
Free open-source library – bbbackup
You can also use bbbackup, written in Python, to perform a cloud-to-local or cloud-to-cloud repository coning. To clone your Bitbucket repository using this method, you need first install Python on your local machine.
However, this method is still cloning and needs your manual operations, bbbackup allows you to back up all your repositories in a go, which unlike Git clone operation can save your time a bit. On the other hand, this bbbackup doesn’t include all the metadata in a copy, like pull requests, issues, and comments, which you may need if a disaster strikes.
What about Bitbucket Server Backup?
In February 2024 Atlassian stopped supporting its server versions, including the Bitbucket server. However, there are still those who haven’t migrated their Bitbucket environment to the Cloud or Data Center. For that, they may have different reasons… Yet, the main question we want to raise here is “if there is a possibility of backing up their data”?
The answer is – yes. As an option, they can use their own backup scripts or Atlassian’s command line tool – Bitbucket Server Backup Client, which isn’t compatible with Bitbucket Data Center or Cloud. Though, it allows you to make a copy of your Bitbucket data, including the database to which the Bitbucket Server is connected, Git repositories, plugins, and the Bitbucket Server audit logs, it doesn’t include metadata to your copies.
Third-party backup solution
Then, you can opt for a third-party backup tool to back up your Bitbucket environment. In this scenario, you can share your responsibility for data protection with specialized backup software. Moreover, third-party backup tools can also foresee the necessity of recovery and also provide different restore options.
While you’re choosing the right Bitbucket backup tool for your organization you should also pay attention if that backup and Disaster recovery software provides all the necessary DevOps backup best practices, including full data coverage – repositories and metadata, security features, and foresees and disaster scenario to guarantee immediate restore, eliminating data loss.
Benefits of using a Bitbucket Backup Tool
- You may have better control over the backup frequency, storage destinations, and retention.
- You can ensure business continuity in case of disasters or outages as you can rapidly recover data and minimize downtime.
- You can meet compliance requirements for repository data protection, security, and Disaster Recovery (backup is a must-have to meet GDPR, SOC 2, HIPAA, ISO 27001, and other industry-specific regulations).
- It might provide you with audit logs and reporting for compliance.
A detailed overview of Bitbucket backup tools and apps
Bitbucket backup is crucial for maintaining data integrity and Disaster Recovery inside your Bitbucket environment. The presented tools provide with wide range of functionality, to make sure that you can access and restore your data when there is a need.
GitProtect.io Backup for Bitbucket
Allowing to schedule and automate backups for Bitbucket Cloud and Data Center, GitProtect.io is the most comprehensive backup and Disaster Recovery software proven by both SOC 2 and ISO 27001 audits. The backup and Disaster Recovery software allows to protect both Bitbucket repositories and metadata and makes SOC 2 or ISO 27001 compliance easy and ensures comprehensive data protection. Moreover, Gitprotect.io supports backup for GitHub, GitLab, and Jira, which makes it possible to back up the entire DevOps infrastructure.
Let’s look at the features that set GitProtect.io apart from other Bitbucket backup options:
Easy configuration and management: With GitProtect.io, you don’t need to install any software or agents to start backing up your data. You can easily view and manage your backups from any browser. The intuitive interface provides detailed dashboards, visual statistics, a compliance section, real-time monitoring, and on-demand actions, ensuring you are always informed about the status of the backup processes of your Bitbucket environment.
Backup automation: To reduce your DevOps team’s workload and ensure that your Bitbucket backups run seamlessly, you can easily schedule automated backup policy to be performed automatically at your preferred frequency and time. If needed, you can also manually initiate backups for your Bitbucket ecosystem. For organizations with specific requirements, you can create fully customized backup policies with varying retention settings (up to unlimited), different encryption levels in flight and at rest, and the option to set your own encryption key.
Assign as many storage destinations as your policy requires: GitProtect.io is a multi-storage backup provider, which means that you can assign as many storage locations as you want – both cloud and local. GitProtect.io is compatible with AWS, Azure Blob Storage, Google Cloud Storage, Blackblaze B2, or any other S3. Moreover, once you set up your backup plan with GitProtect.io, you get free unlimited storage (with data residency in Europe, the USA, and Australia) to start protecting your Bitbucket data immediately. If you want to keep your data locally, you can keep your backups on SMB network shares, local disk resources, and NAS devices. As an option, you can choose a hybrid backup option and store your Bitbucket backups both in the cloud and locally. All of these can help you to meet the 3-2-1 backup rule.
Ensure full data coverage in your backups: GitProtect.io allows you to backup Bitbucket repositories and all the related metadata, including wikis, issues, issue comments, deployment keys, downloads, pull requests, pull request comments, tags, LFS, webhooks, branches, commits, etc.
Data security and ransomware protection: With GitProtect.io, you get a secure final line of protection, including AES encryption in flight and at rest with your own encryption key, immutable storage where all the backup files are storage separately (if ransomware hits your storage, it won’t be able to spread in it and infect all your data), Disaster Recovery technology that foresees any disaster scenario.
Secure authentication and authorization: You can make your DevOps team’s authorization and authentication process to the backup solution easier by enabling login and authentication with SAML & SSO, via Auth0, Azure AD, Okta, CybrArk, or Google.
Role and permission management: Within GitProtect.io’s web-management console, you can assign different roles and permissions to your team. Hence, some of your team members will be allowed to only monitor backup performance, while others can set backup plans, restore data, manage data stores, and/or system settings. It will give you full control over management and backup performance.
Compliance requirements fulfillment: SLA and compliance sections, advanced data-driven monitoring options, custom notifications, alerting, and reporting – all of these aimed at providing you with the full picture of your backup processes done successfully or with warnings. This easy overview of all your backup performance can help you meet compliance and security regulations.
Restore and Disaster Recovery technology: To foresee and disaster scenario and allow immediate restore, Gitprotect.io provides point-in-time restore, full Bitbucket data recovery, granular restore, recovery to the same or new Bitbucket account, or locally to your machine, and cross-over recovery to another Git hosting provider, like GitHub or GitLab.
You can try GitProtect backup and Disaster Recovery software for Bitbucket for free during a 14-day trial.
Rewind Backups for Bitbucket
Rewind is an on-demand backup and restoration tool for DevOps, that assists businesses back up and recover Bitbucket data immediately in case of a failure.
Among the features that Rewind provides, it’s possible to mention:
Automation of daily backups: The backup solution permits you to schedule automatic backups or run on-demand a one-off backup.
Backup of the entire Bitbucket ecosystem: With Rewind you can back up both Bitbucket repositories and metadata.
Data recovery and exports: The backup provider permits you to restore your full Bitbucket repository or only individual items in case of an error. Also, it allows you to export a mirrored clone when you need it.
365-day data retention: With the backup solution, you can store your backed-up data for up to 365 days with no limitations.
Different encryption options: The backup provider encrypts your data with end-to-end 256-bit encryption and TLS 1.2 encryption.
Security: Rewind is SOC 2 compliant and provides such security measures as access management, authorization with SAML, backup real-time audit logs, GDPR-ready process, etc.
HYCU
Helping organizations protect their source code, HYCU is an automated backup and one-click restore solution. It helps to eliminate data loss and save developers’ time for backups.
Among the key features of the backup and restore solution, there can be mentioned:
Automated backups: You can protect your Bitbucket data with daily backups that run automatically and don’t affect your Bitbucket performance.
Storage: \HYCU permits you to store your Bitbucket backups in S3-compatible storage so that you can control data retention, residency requirements, and security.
Fast restore: You can restore your Bitbucket repositories and projects fully or granularly quickly from on-premise to the cloud or SaaS (or any between).
Security: The backup vendor provides immutable air-gapped copies.
Compliance: With built-in compliance monitoring and logging, you can have a full picture of your backup operation.
SCM Backup
Being a free and open-source backup tool, SCM Backup allows to make offline backups of Bitbucket, GitHub, and GitLab, by cloning them. This backup option allows to back up multiple users or teams per source code hoster.
SCM Backup core features:
Ease of use: SCM backup provides an easy-to-use backup and restore tool.
Don’t back up all the data in bulk: The backup tool allows you to exclude the repositories you don’t need to back up.
Data to backup: With the solution you can back up your Bitbucket repositories (such metadata as issues, pull requests, or comments are not included in the backup copy).
On-demand backups: You can manually perform backups when you need them.
Takeaway
What backup solution is the best for your Bitbucket ecosystem? To answer this question, you need first to understand what issues you may face, what compliance, legal, and internal organization requirements you have, your organization’s size, and the amount of critical data – so, you should think about all the possible risks.
Also, it’s worth trying a few Bitbucket backup options to see which meets your requirements better. Thus, you will be able to evaluate the option’s backup performance, scheduler, disaster recovery capabilities, ransomware protection, reporting and alerting, security measures, SAML integration, and more. Ensure your choice provides robust protection, peace of mind and has your back(up)!