Two days ago, we announced Amanda Enterprise Edition 2.6. One of the
key features of the release is Zmanda Management Console - a simple,
secure and easy to use interface for Amanda. Zmanda Management Console
allows users to configure and administer Amanda backups, restore from
Amanda backup archives, and provides reports.

In addition to Zmanda Management Console, Amanda Enterprise Edition
2.6 includes Amanda Rapid Installer. Amanda Rapid Installer makes the
installation of Amanda Enterprise Edition and Zmanda Management
Console a simple process. Users just need to download the common binary for all
supported platforms from the Zmanda Network, run the installer, answer
few …

I will be talking about backup and recovery of Web applications at SCALE 5x. Characteristics of Web applications create unique requirements for backup and recovery. The talk will discuss open source backup and recovery tools for file systems, MySQL and PostgreSQL databases. Conference guru blog provides more information on my session.

I would be happy to meet folks who are interested in Amanda, ZRM for MySQL and open source backups in general before or after the session.

Version 1.1.4 of Zmanda Recovery Manager (ZRM) for MySQL, a robust and
intelligent solution for backup and recovery of MySQL databases is available
for download at Zmanda downloads page. Changes since 1.1.3 release: * Support for aborting backup runs
* Support for character sets and stored routines
* Bug fixes Take a look at ZRM for MySQL user documentation for more information on how to install and configure it. Find bugs and report them at bugzilla (http://forums.zmanda.com/bugzilla). Feel free to contribute to ZRM for MySQL wiki and …

ZRM for MySQL users manual has been rewritten based on user feedback. It is available at ZRM for MySQL wiki

Thanks to everyone who provided feedback. User contributions to the manual are welcome.

Version 1.1.3 of Zmanda Recovery Manager (ZRM) for MySQL, an enterprise solution for backup and recovery of MySQL databases is available for download at Zmanda downloads page.

Changes since 1.1.2 release:
* Supports Ubuntu Edgy (6.10) release
* Works with MySQL enterprise 5.0
* User configuration for custom plugins
* Bug fixes

Documentation is available in ZRM for MySQL wiki. Please use forums to provide feedback on the release.

Thanks to all users for providing valuable feedback as well as finding bugs in earlier
releases

I was talking to a customer yesterday and the customer was surprised that database backups can be used to detect malicious database activity from legitimate users and hackers.

ZRM for MySQL stores MySQL binary logs as part of the database backups. The binary logs provide a good audit trail of all database activity. ZRM for MySQL binary log parsing capability, usually used for selective point in time recovery, can also be used to detect malicious database activity using SQL inspection.

ZRM for MySQL plugin interface allows DBAs to write log parser plugin scripts to track the database activity that they are interested in. For example: the following script can be used to detect deletion of data from the PRODUCTS table in the database. This script …

ZRM for MySQL requires binary logging to be enabled on the MySQL server to do incremental backups. Enabling binary logs has minimal impact on MySQL performance. But, in an active database, the binary logs can grow to hundreds of gigabytes or even terabytes.

ZRM of MySQL has multiple plugin interfaces to customize the backup and recovery process to user environment. One of the plugin interfaces is the post backup plugin. The binary logs are no longer required after a backup. The post backup plugin can purge the binary logs after the backup. This will allow the system administrators to balance between the need for …

Goal of a MySQL system administrator is to have regular, consistent backups of the
databases with minimal impact on the database application. The backup process should
also limit the use of CPU, memory, network resources so that application is not impacted.
Optimal backup method must be choosen to keep the backup window as small as possible.
The backup parameters depends on various factors - number and size of databases, number
of MySQL servers, MySQL configuration, data security.

ZRM for MySQL provides consolidated backup and recovery for MySQL databases. ZRM
for MySQL provides extensive list of options to tune the backup process for the user
environment. It also tracks lots of backup parameters that are available to the administrator
to tune the backup process.

…

Zmanda recovery manager for MySQL 1.1.2 is available from Zmanda downloads page. This release has been tested on Debian distribution and on MySQL server 4.0.24.

I want to acknowledge Thorsten Schifferdecker’s contribution to this release. He helped us by creating debian packages for earlier releases and provided good feedback on the product.

Lots of bugs have been fixed and this release has underwent more testing with different MySQL configurations.

Take a look at ZRM for MySQL wiki for changes, documentation, try it in your MySQL configuration and feel free to provide feedback on forums.

I had organized a session at MySQL camp on Saturday on the above topic. I should say I was one of the guilty ones who had slides for the session in an “unconference“.

Brian Aker (of MySQL) graciously stepped in to answer some questions and provided reasons for some of the design decisions in MySQL OnlineBackup. Some of them are:

• Envelope format for backup archive. This would allow backup as well as recovery to continue in case the storage engines failed to do backup or recovery respectively.

• Block size and envelope format will help in handling tape errors.

• Logical backup will be done in case storage engine does not have online backup API …