Backup Alerts

Backup alerts are triggered when a backup chain has not been updated within an acceptable timeframe. This condition can prevent Yellowbrick from performing critical database maintenance operations like garbage collection and VACUUM.

Purpose

The primary purpose of this alert is to ensure that backup chains are not stale for extended periods. In Yellowbrick, backups act as a constraint on the Table Delete Horizon — a mechanism that prevents garbage collection of table versions that might still be needed for backup purposes.

When a backup chain becomes too old, it can indefinitely stall garbage collector (GC) and VACUUM processes, leading to storage bloat and degraded performance.

The threshold for this alert is configurable and documented here.

Alert Definition

Alert	Severity	Trigger After	Description	Threshold Ref
Backup Chain Age	CRITICAL	-	At least one backup chain is older than [old_chain_threshold_days] day(s).	old_chain_threshold_days