Performing Backup of a Live MySQL Database using mysqldump
Live MySQL Backup without Locking Tables
Mysqldump client utility is the easiest and favorite tool for DBAs to backup a MySQL database. It supports numerous options to configure the backup such as type of backup format, what to backup, how to deal with key constraints, how to deal with transactions etc. The output of a mysqldump backup operation is named as a dump file and it can be restored to recreate the backed up database. The dump files can be in formats like CSV, tab-delimited, SQL, XML etc. The dump file can be further compressed using a suitable compression utility like Tar, Gzip, XZ, Bzip2 etc to reduce the dump file size to make it easier for storage and transfer.
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