MySQL backup soon becomes an important matter when the database is used in production. The pain-point comes from the fact that while backuping the database is not available to respond to client requests anymore. With mysqldump - the standard tool for performing MySQL backups - and a large database the operation can go over many tenth of minutes if not hours. If I am running my business on line this is simply not acceptable.
The classical approach to workaround this problem is to take
advantage of MySQL replication. I set up a master/slave
configuration where the slave acts as copy of the master. Then,
when needed, I run mysqldump on the slave without any
service interruption on the master.
But ZFS snapshosts bring a new straightforward approach
that avoids the pain and the complexity of a master/slave
replication.
Snapshots are a key feature of ZFS that allows me to save a copy of …
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