# Prepare your Google Cloud Firestore environment

Plan how Commvault protects your Google Cloud Firestore data. In most environments, you can start with recommended defaults and adjust only if your environment requires it.

## Start with your Google Cloud Firestore environment

Each Commvault instance represents a GCP project in a specific region. If you operate multiple GCP projects or deploy Firestore databases in multiple regions, configure separate Commvault instances for each project and region combination. This approach provides isolation by project, region, and environment (production, test, or development).

## Align storage with your Google Cloud Firestore region

Recommended approach: use backup storage in the same cloud provider and region as your Google Cloud Firestore database. This minimizes latency, avoids egress charges, and improves backup and restore performance.

Firestore exports data directly to a Google Cloud Storage bucket. The backup storage destination must be in the same region as your Firestore database for optimal performance and cost efficiency. The access node orchestrates the export operation but does not transfer bulk data, so the access node has no regional placement constraint.

If you use a different region for resilience or compliance, expect higher costs and longer backup and restore times.

## Understand backup behavior

Google Cloud Firestore supports both full and incremental backups:

- Full backups export all selected collections and composite indexes to Google Cloud Storage. Full backups are supported for all Firestore databases.

- Incremental backups are supported only for MongoDB-compatible Firestore databases (with `mongodbCompatibleDataAccessMode` enabled). Each collection included in the backup must have a change stream pre-configured. The backup uses change streams to capture only the documents modified since the last successful backup.

- If the last successful backup is older than 7 days, the incremental job automatically converts to a full backup.

- Collections without change streams or collections in non-MongoDB-compatible databases receive full backups only.

## Decide how to scope your data

You can scope backup content at the collection level. During configuration, you can either select specific collections from the browse tree or define rules to select content dynamically. The special value "ALL" discovers all collections at backup time. Tag-based discovery is supported to automatically include or exclude collections matching GCP resource tag criteria.

You can also enable granular mode at the subclient level. When granular mode is enabled, one export operation is performed per collection, allowing per-collection restore granularity. When disabled (default), all selected collections are exported in a single operation.

## Organize backups logically

Use subclients to organize the backups based on how your organization manages Google Cloud Firestore data. Common approaches include grouping by environment (production, test, or development), business unit or application, or data sensitivity or compliance requirements — whichever helps you apply consistent policies and simplifies monitoring and reporting.

## Plan for performance

Backup and restore performance depends on data size, change rate, and region alignment. To optimize performance, align storage with your Google Cloud Firestore region, avoid unnecessary fragmentation of protection scopes, and schedule backups to avoid peak workload periods.

## Confirm permissions early

Make sure the required Google Cloud Firestore permissions are in place before configuring protection. For details, see Configure Google Cloud Firestore user and permissions.

## Understand key limitations

- Incremental backups are supported for MongoDB-compatible Firestore databases only. Each collection must have a change stream pre-configured.

- Cross-database restore requires the target database to be pre-created in the destination GCP project.

- The backup GCS bucket must exist before backup.

- Incremental backup window is capped at 7 days.

For complete details, see the Limitations section in Google Cloud Firestore.

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