Rollback makes an earlier Apache Iceberg table snapshot current by moving the table’s metadata pointer. It reverses the table state for future queries and writes without deleting files introduced by later snapshots. section 11.3.4
Use rollback as part of an incident-recovery workflow:
- Inspect historical snapshots with time travel, using a snapshot ID or timestamp, to validate the intended recovery point and diagnose the failure. section 11.3.4
- Apply the rollback_to_snapshot procedure to update the current metadata pointer to the selected snapshot. section 11.3.4
- Coordinate the operation through the catalog and query engine, whose atomic metadata commits preserve consistency across concurrent operations. section 7.1.2
Rollback differs from time travel: time travel reads an earlier state without changing production, whereas rollback changes the state seen by subsequent reads and writes. Snapshot retention and file cleanup therefore remain separate operational concerns. section 11.3.4 section 4.3.3
