Katalyst: Understanding the difference between “export” and “backup” functions

Description

• Users see both “export” and “backup” options in Katalyst and are unsure:
  • Which to use for archiving data.
  • Which is intended for sharing with other systems vs internal recovery.

Solution

• Export:
  • Typically intended to:
    • Share experiment data with external systems (ELNs, registration, reporting).
    • Generate files formatted for external consumption (e.g., specific schema).
• Backup:
  • Intended as an internal safety copy:
    • Allows restoring an experiment to a previous state in Katalyst.
    • Not necessarily formatted for direct use by external systems.
• Usage guidelines:
  • Use export when:
    • Sending data to another application or long‑term archive in a defined external format.
  • Use backup when:
    • You need the ability to roll back changes or recover from corruption/human error within Katalyst.