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.