On Fri, Apr 29, 2005 at 04:37:27PM +0100, Steven Jenner wrote:
> Hi, I have been asked by a customer to provide a solution to backing up
> a MySQL DB on a system running Fedora Core 3. As I have little knowledge
> of MySQL I was wondering if anyone out there had any suggestions on best
> practises to perform this function and also best way to then restore the
> DB.
> 
> The customer does not want to dump the data to a flat file format as
> they believe this would take a long time to restore, therefore they have
> suggested shutting the DB down and then backing it up whilst it is in a
> closed state; is this the best way forward?

I've done both types of backups - to a flat file and to shut the
database down and back it up cold.  Both work.  The flat file approach
gives you the added benefit of being able to do a hot backup.  My
database isn't large (<1MB) but the restore was very fast.  You may want
to do a test restore to another system and then you can tell the client
just how long it takes.

> If it is does anyone have any suggestions as to whether the Veritas
> agent can set off a script shutting down the DB when the backup starts
> and then starting it once it is complete.

This you will have to be *very* careful with.  Although you can call out
scripts, you have very little interaction with them in case of various
failure scenarios.  If a tape fails and your job dies, do you want to
leave the database down? How do you want to handle retries?  You've got
a lot of issues here and the answer is non-trivial.  We have worked with
hot Oracle backups for several years and still can't recover properly
from all the various failure scenarios. If your current database spans
only a single mount-point, your job is easier and it might work for you.
If your database spans mutiple mount disks and you want them backed up
in parallel, you're in for a long battle with home-grown scripts.

-- 
Ed Wilts, Mounds View, MN, USA
mailto:ewilts AT ewilts DOT org