Top considerations for

backup of MySQL
Presented by,
MySQL & O’Reilly Media, Inc. Dmitri Joukovski, Zmanda
Why do you need to backup MySQL?
 Disaster recovery

 Compliance requirements

 Protecting against user error

 Application testing
What are your recovery objectives?

 To what point in time do you want to recover

your database?
Recovery Point Objective (RPO)

 How much time will you have to recover your

database?
Recovery Time Objective (RTO)
Be ready for different types of recovery
 The whole server

 Specific database

 Specific table

 Specific transactions
Easy recovery = successful recovery

 Make a list of possible recovery situations

Original location
New hardware and same OS and MySQL version
New hardware and different OS

 Test all of them

 Actual recoveries happen under stress

How much backup will impact your application?
 Backup window – the amount of time your
application is unavailable or degraded
Cold, warm and hot backup

 Size of database
Define your backup window
 Database activity
 Business requirements

 Plan for backup early on

Do you know what to backup?
 Number of MySQL servers
 Storage engines (don’t forget about the future)
 Use of MySQL replication

 Pay special attention to:

 Referential integrity
 MySQL versions being used
 Application might store data outside of MySQL
What is the best time to backup?
 Database activity
Is there a time database is less active?
Nature of activity (selects, inserts/updates)

 Postpone backup if database is busy

 Where do you want to backup?

 Not on the same spindles!
How do you manage backups?
 Automation

 Pre-backup and post-backup

 Security
Encryption
Who has the rights to recover data
technical and business rights
What kind of tracking and reporting you need?
 Timely notifications
Backup failures

 Reports about backups

 Retention period of your backups

Defines how much space you need
Purging expired backups
What are the available solutions?
 Write your own script
 Pay $300 for MySQL recommended solution –
Zmanda Recovery Manager
Takeaways
 Think about recovery first and be ready for
different types of recovery

 Understand impact of backup on your

application

 Figure out what, where and when to backup

 Notifications and reports will simplify your

backup procedures and ensure successful
recoveries