On-site Canvas backup

Question

Hi,

Has anyone pursued establishing an on-site/on-campus backup of their Canvas instance (updated and ultimately similarly functional to the Beta or Test instances provided when Instructure hosts your LMS in AWS)?

adam_c_voyton · Accepted Answer

No—this is generally not pursued, as it is complex and would require significant manual updates and maintenance.

Running an on-site or on‑campus backup of a Canvas instance comparable to hosted Beta/Test environments would involve replicating infrastructure, managing updates, handling integrations, and ensuring data consistency. Unlike Instructure-managed environments, which are automatically maintained, a local instance would require continuous manual synchronization and upkeep, making it impractical for most institutions.

As a result, organizations typically rely on Instructure’s hosted environments rather than attempting to recreate them locally.

As an alternative, some organizations use third-party solutions such as K16, which is a SaaS service that enables backups of Canvas data outside of Canvas; however, this comes with additional cost.