A distributed system responds to a request to enable restoration capability for a database instance by beginning a process for monitoring configuration changes made to a first operating environment of a first database instance. The system identifies a configuration change on which the database instance is dependent, and stores a record of the configuration change. The record is provided to a second operating environment. The second operating environment is configured, based on the record of the configuration change, to have configuration settings corresponding to the first operating environment as of the restoration point in time. The database instance is restored to the second operating environment.