Why is my instance shelving?

What does shelving mean?

When an instance is shelving, its data is being safely moved from the active node to our scalable storage system. This system ensures we can efficiently manage large numbers of instances while keeping your data secure and available.

Why does shelving happen?

Your instance may enter the shelving state for one of two reasons:

• Inactivity – the instance has not been used for a period of time.
• Migration – the instance is being moved to a different node.

Note: Shelving may take a few minutes depending on the size of your instance.

Inactive instances

Instances that remain idle are automatically shelved to free up local node storage.

• Typically, this happens after a few days of inactivity.
• In some cases, shelving may occur sooner (within a few hours) if additional node storage capacity is needed.

Instances being migrated

When we migrate an instance between nodes, the current workflow requires shelving:

• The instance’s data is first uploaded to the storage system.
• The data is then downloaded onto the new node.

This ensures a reliable migration process.

Future improvement: We plan to support direct node‑to‑node migration, eliminating the need for intermediate shelving.

Key takeaways

• Shelving is a normal and safe process.
• Your data remains secure.
• Instances can be unshelved and resumed when needed.
• The shelving process may take a few minutes, depending on the size of your instance.