Announcing Data Preservation Service

01 Apr 2024

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3 minute read

We live in a world where data is as critical as air and water, powering everything from global enterprises to personal projects. At Supabase, we create products that are not just cutting-edge but also secure, reliable, and now, timeless.

Today, we are excited to introduce a groundbreaking service that bridges the digital divide with the most enduring medium known to humankind: paper. Meet pg_paper_dump, Supabase’s answer to the ultimate data preservation conundrum.

Why Paper?#

In the digital era, the threat landscape is constantly evolving, with new vulnerabilities emerging at a pace that's hard to keep up with. While digital backups are the norm, they are susceptible to cyber-attacks, hardware failures, and obsolescence.

This vulnerability led us to think outside the digital box and into a realm that is impervious to hacking, immune to electromagnetic pulses, and resistant to time itself: physical paper.

Historical data backup on Papyrus that inspired pg_paper_dump.

How does pg_paper_dump work?#

Backup Process#

  1. Select Your Data: Choose the databases you wish to back up with pg_paper_dump.
  2. Encode and Print: Our system encodes your data with Comic Sans and prints it onto durable paper.
  3. Secure Storage: We store your paper backups in a location of your choice or utilize our secure Arctic Vault for maximum security.

Restoration Process#

  1. Select your recovery point: Thanks to point-in-time recovery, we can restore your data up until any specific page.
  2. Restore: Our Mechanical Turks are trained to decode data encoded in Comic Sans and will input your data with reasonable human-accuracy into your destination database.

Scaling data preservation with containers#

Our Analog Engineering team has developed a container orchestration protocol to coordinate the backup and restore process of large databases.

Who is pg_paper_dump for?#

  • Companies that use fax machines.
  • Future SOC 4 compliant companies.
  • Vogons.

Features and Benefits#

  • Security: Provides a level of security that is fundamentally beyond the reach of digital vulnerabilities.
  • Eco-conscious: Our materials are selected for minimal environmental impact without compromising on durability or legibility.
  • Simplicity of Restoration: When the time comes, restoring your data is as simple as taking the printed codes and typing them back into Supabase’s SQL editor.

Availability#

Sign up for our open beta to get access to pg_paper_dump now or try it out our self-hosted solution.

As all of our products, we have open-sourced the code and made it available to the public to be used without any restrictions here.

The Future is Here#

We are offering a bridge between these worlds, providing a backup solution that stands the test of time. Join us in redefining data security and making history, one sheet at a time.

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