[[administer-elasticsearch]]
= Administering {es}

[partintro]
--
Elasticsearch is a complex piece of software, with many moving parts. There are
many APIs and features that are designed to help you manage your Elasticsearch
cluster.

--

[[backup-cluster]]
== Back up a cluster

As with any software that stores data, it is important to routinely back up your
data. {es} replicas provide high availability during runtime; they enable you to
tolerate sporadic node loss without an interruption of service.

Replicas do not provide protection from catastrophic failure, however. For that,
you need a real backup of your cluster—a complete copy in case something goes
wrong.

To back up your cluster, you can use the <<modules-snapshots,snapshot API>>.

include::{es-repo-dir}/modules/snapshots.asciidoc[tag=snapshot-intro]