Terracotta 10.11 | Terracotta Server Administration Guide | Backup, Restore and Data Migration | Overview of Backup and Restore
 
Overview of Backup and Restore
The Backup and Restore feature enables you as an administrator of a Terracotta cluster to take a backup of the cluster and restore it from the backed up data when required.
Terracotta supports two ways of taking a backup:
1. Online backup using the cluster-tool. This is the recommended method.
2. Manual offline backup
Restore and Ehcache data migration are manual offline processes.
Note: 
Migration of TCStore data is currently not supported.
When a passive server starts and discovers it has data, the data is automatically backed up for safety reasons. However, this data is not cluster-wide consistent, and must not be used for restoration. Refer to the section Active and Passive Servers for more information.
Terms
Backup and Restore : Taking a snapshot of the cluster data such that it can later be installed back on the same cluster, bringing it back to the initial state.
Data Migration : Taking a snapshot of the cluster data, but installing it on a different cluster, bringing it to the state of the original cluster. Data Migration is also desirable in cases when only Ehcache data is needed, and not the platform data.