feat: Add Datadog Backup post

Author: jim80net

_posts/2020-08-10-datadog-backup.md

@@ -0,0 +1,88 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: Backing up Datadog and Performing Bulk Edits
+tags:
+- datadog
+- monitoring
+- featured
+team: Core Infrastructure
+authors:
+- jimp
+- kamranf
+
+---
+
+# Datadog Backup
+
+What would happen if someone accidentally deleted a dashboard or important
+monitor in Datadog? How would we know that it had changed? All of our monitoring
+and metrics at Scribd are configured in [Datadog](https://www.datadoghq.com), so
+it was important to have a mechanism to **track changes** across all these
+resources and be able to **revert back** to a previous state in case of a bad
+change. We also wanted the ability to **search and edit** across all dashboards
+and monitors (to refactor a tag, for example). 
+
+When composing dashboards and monitors, immediate feedback is critical.
+Therefore, as we evaluated existing tools, we looked for the ability to coexist
+with Datadog’s native user interface. 
+
+Finding none that exactly fit our needs, we wrote [Datadog
+Backup](https://github.com/scribd/datadog_backup), an open source Ruby Gem.
+Datadog Backup focuses on the ability to perform global backups and bulk editing
+without impeding the free use of the Datadog User Interface.
+
+Aspects of this project were inspired by the likes of
+[Doggy](https://github.com/Shopify/doggy). As you consider your approach to
+Datadog management, we highly recommend you also take a look at it and other
+client libraries at
+[https://docs.datadoghq.com/developers/libraries/#datadog-client-community-libraries](https://docs.datadoghq.com/developers/libraries/#datadog-client-community-libraries).
+
+
+## How to use Datadog Backup
+
+The intended use case for Datadog Backup is as a component of a Github Action
+workflow, or similar CD pipeline, that takes regular backups of Datadog, then
+commits to a git repository. This enables such a repository to be used as an
+audit trail, capturing the state of Datadog configuration at regular intervals.
+
+A local backup will additionally enable performing a search against the YAML or
+JSON definitions and performing mass updates which can then be pushed back to
+Datadog. To use the tool to make a mass edit to Datadog configuration, one
+modifies the repository locally, then runs the command in “restore” mode.
+
+
+### Running the tool
+
+```
+gem install datadog_backup
+export DATADOG_API_KEY=abc123 
+export DATADOG_APP_KEY=abc123
+
+# Perform backup to optional/path/to/backupdir using YAML encoding
+datadog_backup backup --backup-dir optional/path/to/backupdir
+
+# Make some changes
+
+# Just review the changes since last backup
+datadog_backup diffs --backup-dir optional/path/to/backupdir
+
+# Review and apply local changes to datadog
+
+datadog_backup restore --backup-dir optional/path/to/backupdir
+```
+
+### Using the tool in Github Actions
+
+Included in the git repo for Datadog Backup is an [example Github Actions
+workflow](https://github.com/scribd/datadog_backup/tree/master/example) for
+periodically backing up your Datadog deployment.
+
+### Further development
+
+Some areas to further expand the gem are:
+
+-   Backup of metadata
+
+If you find this Gem useful, and would like to expand on it, [contributions are
+welcome](https://github.com/scribd/datadog_backup)! 
+