MySQL has had, quite possibly, one of the most impressive climbs to fame of any Open Source based software I know. Of course, with this fame, there are more and more people out there downloading it and setting it up on their servers/home machines. Once it's up and working, though, one of the most common questions is "how can I backup my information?". Well, with a new posting this morning, Open Sourcery hopes to provide you with an easy and quick example.

In Backing Up MySQL, Blane Warrene states: There are several ways to backup MySQL data, however, automation certainly makes the process easier. Insuring your backed up data is stored remotely further supports your business continuity in the event of a need to restore data onto new systems based on hardware failure, etc.

He moves on to talk about some nice scripts he discovered from PJ Doland built from a "web designer in the Washington DC area with former ties to the CATO Institute web site". The first provides a simple, quick backup procedure - mysqldump then tar/gzips the file. The second example uses the "mysqlhotcopy" tool (for ISAM/MYISAM tables only) to create the backups for these special cases.