Introducing absctl: A generational upgrade to Aerospike backup and restore

Aerospike has introduced absctl, a new command-line interface designed to replace the legacy asbackup and asrestore tools for managing backups in large, distributed database clusters. This modern tool addresses the challenges of scalability and cloud integration that have become apparent as clusters have expanded into multi-terabyte namespaces and multi-availability zone deployments. Built in Go, absctl improves backup performance by parallelizing partition scanning across cluster nodes, thereby balancing load and maintaining stable latency. It also reduces cross-AZ data transfer costs by keeping backup traffic local, supports direct uploads to major cloud storage providers, and maintains compatibility with the existing backup file format. While absctl consolidates backup and restore commands into a single CLI to simplify processes, the legacy tools will remain supported until the end of 2026, providing users ample time to transition to absctl for their production systems.