This tutorial aims at transferring all the data from a remote Redis®* database (from another provider) to a Redis®* instance provisioned through the Scalingo For Redis® Addon.

Requirements

The remote Redis® instance should be accessible on the Internet.

These instructions require Redis® Input/Output Tools (RIOT) to be installed. This is a set of tools developed by the Redis® team. The installation instructions are available on this page.

Install RIOT in a One-Off Container

You first need to install RIOT in a one-off container of your application. RIOT needs a Java Runtime Environment (JRE) to work. When JRE and RIOT are installed, we can replicate the Redis® running on an external server:

$ scalingo --app my-app run bash
[00:00] Scalingo ~ $ wget https://github.com/redis-developer/riot/releases/latest/download/riot-redis-$(wget -q --output-document=- https://github.com/redis-developer/riot/releases/latest/download/VERSION).zip
[00:00] Scalingo ~ $ unzip riot-redis*.zip
[00:00] Scalingo ~ $ git clone https://github.com/Scalingo/buildpack-jvm-common.git
[00:00] Scalingo ~ $ echo "java.runtime.version=15" > system.properties
[00:00] Scalingo ~ $ ./buildpack-jvm-common/bin/compile /app
[00:00] Scalingo ~ $ export PATH=$PATH:/app/.jdk/bin/
[00:00] Scalingo ~ $ ./riot-redis-*/bin/riot-redis --uri $REDIS_SOURCE_URL replicate --uri $SCALINGO_REDIS_URL

The REDIS_SOURCE_URL variable must contain the connection string to the external Redis® instance. For Redis® URI syntax see here.

At that point, the replication process has started. Its duration is relative to the amount of data contained on the remote database. It’s usually a matter of seconds.

Note that the riot-redis tool is powerful and includes various arguments. All the information is on the documentation page. You may want to have a look at the --mode live option for continuous replication. It could be useful for a 0-downtime migration.

*Redis is a registered trademark of Redis Ltd. Any rights therein are reserved to Redis Ltd. Any use by Scalingo is for referential purposes only and does not indicate any sponsorship, endorsement or affiliation between Redis and Scalingo.