Dump a Cloud SQL database without stressing the instance

Some applications have customers all over the world, so there is no way to put the production instance down for maintenance. Still, you need a dump of the production database to create new dev environments and so on.

This is the solution:

gcloud sql export sql ${INSTANCE_NAME} \
    gs://${BUCKET_NAME}/${DUMP_NAME} \
    --database=${DB_NAME} \
    --offload

With the --offload option, a temporary instance is created from a snapshot and the dump is processed there. Your production instance is not stressed.

Notes:

• The dump is only compressed if the filename ends with .gz.
• The instance service account needs write access to the bucket.
• Costs more (look for “Serverless export”).