MySQL backups

[Ted Roche]

Thomas Charron wrote:
>   Has anyone had experience with using CA backup solutions backing up
> CVS and MySQL data repositories?
> 
>   It really concerns me that our Sysadmins are planning to do this, as
> they don't want to take down the MySQL or CVS servers while they do a
> backup.
> 
>   MySQL file locking, and the integrity of the CVS backup are two
> issues that I just don't see how a strait file based backup can work
> on this server.
> 

There are ways (different ones, of course) to do hot backups of MySQL
while it is online, but they vary with the data storage engine used. As
several have said, the right technique is to backup the dumps, not the
actual database files. That's like backing up the swap partition and
hoping restoring it will bring the machine back to life.

-- 
Ted Roche
Ted Roche & Associates, LLC
http://www.tedroche.com