Difference Between Environment Backup and Artifact Snapshot

The Environment Backup is created at the physical level and includes all artifacts and data while the Artifact Snapshot is created at the application level and does not include some of the artifacts even though it includes all data.

The purpose of an Environment Backup includes:

• Restoring an environment in the most efficient and reliable manner to the exact same state it was when the Environment Backup was created
• Cloning an environment to another environment for disaster recovery or production to test migration to bring the target environment to the exact same state as the source environment

The purpose of an Artifact Snapshot includes:

• Performing incremental migration between environments (for example, test to production and back)
• Importing template or sample application where some artifacts are intentionally excluded

Note:

• An environment does not create the Artifact Snapshot if it has not been in use since the last maintenance window. If an environment has not been in use for 14 days, however, a new Artifact snapshot is created.

• You can manually back up artifacts at any time using Migration. See "Backing up Artifacts and Applications" in Administering Migration.
• The application enters maintenance mode when daily maintenance begins. See Managing Daily Maintenance.