Incremental backups of MySQL, specifically for the InnoDB engine, are taken by copying modified pages from the previous backup.

The brute force method takes backups by scanning every page in tablespace file in the server data directory is an expensive operation. The time required for incremental backups increases as the data-dir size increases.

To solve this problem, Percona Server for MySQL introduced a  “Changed Page Tracking” feature in 5.6 that enables Percona XtraBackup (PXB) to copy only the modified pages required for incremental backups. See the Percona XtraBackup Documentation for more information. …

Incremental backups in MySQL were always a tricky exercise. Logical backup tools like mysqldump or mydumper don’t support incremental backups, although it’s possible to emulate them with binary logs. And with snapshot-based backup tools it’s close to impossible to take incremental copies.

Percona’s XtraBackup does support incremental backups, but you have to understand well how it works under the hood and be familiar with command line options. That’s not so easy and it’s getting worse when it comes to restoring the database from an incremental copy. Some shops even ditch incremental backups due to complexity in scripting backup and restore procedures.

With TwinDB incremental backups are easy. In this post I will show how to configure MySQL incremental backups for a replication …

December 8, 2014 By Severalnines

Percona XtraBackup is a great backup tool with lots of nice features to make online and consistent backups, although the variety of options can be a bit overwhelming. s9s_backup tries to make it simpler for users, it creates an easy to use interface for XtraBackup features such as full backups, incremental backups, streaming/non-streaming, and parallel compression.

Backups are organized into backup sets, consisting of a full backup and zero or more incremental backups. s9s_backup manages the LSNs (Log Sequence Number) of the XtraBackups. The backup set can then be restored as one single unit using just one command.

In earlier posts, we covered various ways on restoring your backup files …

Here’s a look at using MySQL Enterprise Backup in a specific example:

Consider a Backup Policy – Full Backup of the environment. – Complemental Incremental backups & online BinLogs. And the Restore: – Logical Restore. – Online, Zero impact. – Partial, single database, group of tables. The Backup A working environment, with 4 databases, of which 2 will require restoration. Full backup with MySQL Enterprise Backup:

mysqlbackup --user=root --socket=/tmp/mysql.sock \
  --backup-dir=/home/mysql/voju5/backup/ \
  --with-timestamp backup

Test preparation Create 4 different databases, where the structure & content is the same.

create database v5_1; use v5_1; create table `voju5` (
  `ID` int(7) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `Name` char(20) NOT NULL DEFAULT '‘,
   PRIMARY KEY (`ID`) ) ENGINE=InnoDB;
create database v5_2; use v5_2; create table `voju5` (..);
create database v5_3; use v5_3; …

Here’s a look at using MySQL Enterprise Backup in a specific example:

Consider a Backup Policy – Full Backup of the environment. – Complemental Incremental backups & online BinLogs. And the Restore: – Logical Restore. – Online, Zero impact. – Partial, single database, group of tables. The Backup A working environment, with 4 databases, of which 2 will require restoration. Full backup with MySQL Enterprise Backup:

mysqlbackup --user=root --socket=/tmp/mysql.sock \
  --backup-dir=/home/mysql/voju5/backup/ \
  --with-timestamp backup

Test preparation Create 4 different databases, where the structure & content is the same.

create database v5_1; use v5_1; create table `voju5` (
  `ID` int(7) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `Name` char(20) NOT NULL DEFAULT '‘,
   PRIMARY KEY (`ID`) ) ENGINE=InnoDB;
create database v5_2; use v5_2; create table `voju5` (..);
create database v5_3; use v5_3; …

Backups are an integral and very important part of any system. Backups allow you to recover your data and be up and running again, in the advent of problems such as system crashes, hardware failures or users deleting data by mistake. I had been evaluating backup solution for a while but to be honest I really wasn't satisfied with the solutions available until I came across XtraBackup and I am loving it since. In this post I intend on showing how to do backups and restores using XtraBackup.

A while back, Ted Ts’o asked for a incremental backup solution that used a database. It reminded me of the talk at the 2009 MySQL Conference & Expo, titled Build your own MySQL time machine.

Chuck and Mats will talk about the backup and replication code, and will show off a web interface, that allows you to go back in time, similar to Apple’s Time Machine in Mac OS X. Its a talk that I most certainly want to attend, as an avid Time Machine user.

Register for the MySQL Conference & Expo 2009 before February 16, and you’ll get an early bird discount (saving $200). …