diff --git a/services/backup/src/config.rs b/services/backup/src/config.rs
index d8850b0d3..94d11a41b 100644
--- a/services/backup/src/config.rs
+++ b/services/backup/src/config.rs
@@ -1,50 +1,40 @@
-use clap::{builder::FalseyValueParser, Parser};
+use clap::Parser;
 use once_cell::sync::Lazy;
 use tracing::info;
 
-use crate::constants::{
-  DEFAULT_BLOB_SERVICE_URL, DEFAULT_LOCALSTACK_URL, SANDBOX_ENV_VAR,
-};
+use crate::constants::DEFAULT_BLOB_SERVICE_URL;
 
 #[derive(Parser)]
 #[command(version, about, long_about = None)]
 pub struct AppConfig {
-  /// Run the service in sandbox
-  #[arg(long = "sandbox", default_value_t = false)]
-  // support the env var for compatibility reasons
-  #[arg(env = SANDBOX_ENV_VAR)]
-  #[arg(value_parser = FalseyValueParser::new())]
-  pub is_sandbox: bool,
-  /// AWS Localstack service URL, applicable in sandbox mode
-  #[arg(long, default_value_t = DEFAULT_LOCALSTACK_URL.to_string())]
-  pub localstack_url: String,
+  /// AWS Localstack service URL
+  #[arg(env = "LOCALSTACK_ENDPOINT")]
+  #[arg(long)]
+  pub localstack_endpoint: Option<String>,
   /// Blob service URL
   #[arg(long, default_value_t = DEFAULT_BLOB_SERVICE_URL.to_string())]
   pub blob_service_url: String,
 }
 
 /// Stores configuration parsed from command-line arguments
 /// and environment variables
 pub static CONFIG: Lazy<AppConfig> = Lazy::new(|| AppConfig::parse());
 
 /// Processes the command-line arguments and environment variables.
 /// Should be called at the beginning of the `main()` function.
 pub(super) fn parse_cmdline_args() {
   // force evaluation of the lazy initialized config
   Lazy::force(&CONFIG);
 }
 
 /// Provides region/credentials configuration for AWS SDKs
 pub async fn load_aws_config() -> aws_types::SdkConfig {
   let mut config_builder = aws_config::from_env();
 
-  if CONFIG.is_sandbox {
-    info!(
-      "Running in sandbox environment. Localstack URL: {}",
-      &CONFIG.localstack_url
-    );
-    config_builder = config_builder.endpoint_url(&CONFIG.localstack_url);
+  if let Some(endpoint) = &CONFIG.localstack_endpoint {
+    info!("Using Localstack. AWS endpoint URL: {}", endpoint);
+    config_builder = config_builder.endpoint_url(endpoint);
   }
 
   config_builder.load().await
 }
diff --git a/services/backup/src/constants.rs b/services/backup/src/constants.rs
index 308e4be53..36a402d21 100644
--- a/services/backup/src/constants.rs
+++ b/services/backup/src/constants.rs
@@ -1,60 +1,57 @@
 // Assorted constants
 
 pub const MPSC_CHANNEL_BUFFER_CAPACITY: usize = 1;
 pub const ID_SEPARATOR: &str = ":";
 pub const ATTACHMENT_HOLDER_SEPARATOR: &str = ";";
 
 // 400KiB limit (in docs there is KB but they mean KiB) -
 // https://docs.aws.amazon.com/amazondynamodb/latest/developerguide/ServiceQuotas.html
 // This includes both attribute names' and values' lengths
 //
 // This has to be smaller than GRPC_CHUNK_SIZE_LIMIT because we need to
 // recognize if we may receive multiple chunks or just one. If it was larger
 // than the chunk limit, once we get the amount of data of size equal to the
 // limit, we wouldn't know if we should put this in the database right away or
 // wait for more data.
 pub const LOG_DATA_SIZE_DATABASE_LIMIT: usize = 1024 * 400;
 
 // 4MB limit
 // WARNING: use keeping in mind that grpc adds its own headers to messages
 // https://github.com/grpc/grpc/blob/master/doc/PROTOCOL-HTTP2.md
 // so the message that actually is being sent over the network looks like this
 // [Compressed-Flag] [Message-Length] [Message]
 //    [Compressed-Flag]   1 byte  - added by grpc
 //    [Message-Length]    4 bytes - added by grpc
 //    [Message]           N bytes - actual data
 // so for every message we get 5 additional bytes of data
 // as mentioned here
 // https://github.com/grpc/grpc/issues/15734#issuecomment-396962671
 // grpc stream may contain more than one message
 pub const GRPC_CHUNK_SIZE_LIMIT: usize = 4 * 1024 * 1024;
 pub const GRPC_METADATA_SIZE_PER_MESSAGE: usize = 5;
 
 // Configuration defaults
-pub const DEFAULT_LOCALSTACK_URL: &str = "http://localhost:4566";
 pub const DEFAULT_BLOB_SERVICE_URL: &str = "http://localhost:50053";
 
 // Environment variable names
-
-pub const SANDBOX_ENV_VAR: &str = "COMM_SERVICES_SANDBOX";
 pub const LOG_LEVEL_ENV_VAR: &str =
   tracing_subscriber::filter::EnvFilter::DEFAULT_ENV;
 
 // DynamoDB constants
 
 pub const BACKUP_TABLE_NAME: &str = "backup-service-backup";
 pub const BACKUP_TABLE_FIELD_USER_ID: &str = "userID";
 pub const BACKUP_TABLE_FIELD_BACKUP_ID: &str = "backupID";
 pub const BACKUP_TABLE_FIELD_CREATED: &str = "created";
 pub const BACKUP_TABLE_FIELD_RECOVERY_DATA: &str = "recoveryData";
 pub const BACKUP_TABLE_FIELD_COMPACTION_HOLDER: &str = "compactionHolder";
 pub const BACKUP_TABLE_FIELD_ATTACHMENT_HOLDERS: &str = "attachmentHolders";
 pub const BACKUP_TABLE_INDEX_USERID_CREATED: &str = "userID-created-index";
 
 pub const LOG_TABLE_NAME: &str = "backup-service-log";
 pub const LOG_TABLE_FIELD_BACKUP_ID: &str = "backupID";
 pub const LOG_TABLE_FIELD_LOG_ID: &str = "logID";
 pub const LOG_TABLE_FIELD_PERSISTED_IN_BLOB: &str = "persistedInBlob";
 pub const LOG_TABLE_FIELD_VALUE: &str = "value";
 pub const LOG_TABLE_FIELD_ATTACHMENT_HOLDERS: &str = "attachmentHolders";
 pub const LOG_TABLE_FIELD_DATA_HASH: &str = "dataHash";