Presented by, MySQL & O’Reilly Media, Inc. Top considerations for backup of MySQL 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  Database activity  Business requirements  Plan for backup early on Define your backup window

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