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PostgreSQL Glossary

Restore

Process of rebuilding a database or cluster from backups. Logical restore uses pg_restore; physical restore replays WAL. Example: To restore physically, p…

Definition

Process of rebuilding a database or cluster from backups. Logical restore uses pg_restore; physical restore replays WAL.

What Restore Means in PostgreSQL

Process of rebuilding a database or cluster from backups. Logical restore uses pg_restore; physical restore replays WAL.

Restore appears frequently in production operations, architecture decisions, and troubleshooting workflows. Understanding this term helps teams reason about reliability, performance, and safe change management.

Why Restore Matters

Teams that understand Restore can make better decisions on database design, incident response, and release safety.

In modern PostgreSQL environments, this concept often connects directly to backup strategy, performance tuning, and operational confidence.

  • Improves decision quality for production operations
  • Reduces avoidable troubleshooting time
  • Strengthens reliability and recovery planning

Practical Example

To restore physically, provision a data directory from base backup and set restore_command to replay archived WAL.

Where To Learn More

You can explore deeper implementation patterns in the Vela articles library, review platform workflows in How Vela Works, and compare approaches in our PostgreSQL comparisons.

Related Glossary Topics

Replication restore_command Recovery Target Replication Slot Real-time Analytics ACID Atomicity Archiving (WAL Archiving)

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Restore in PostgreSQL?
Process of rebuilding a database or cluster from backups. Logical restore uses pg_restore; physical restore replays WAL.
Why is Restore important?
Restore matters because it directly affects how teams build, operate, and recover PostgreSQL systems in production.
Can you give a practical Restore example?
To restore physically, provision a data directory from base backup and set restore_command to replay archived WAL.
How does Restore relate to backup, recovery, or performance?
In most production deployments, Restore influences one or more of these areas: data safety, restore behavior, and performance under load.
What should teams check first when implementing Restore?
Start with clear operational goals, test in a non-production environment, and validate behavior with repeatable runbooks before relying on it in production.