MySQL Workbench Enterprise Backup

MySQL Enterprise Backup is a package that comes with the Enterprise Edition, used for providing HOT BACKUPS. 

Hot Backup is a backup which is taken while database is online. If any changes are made to the database while backup operation is in progress, all those changes are taken into the backup. If the transaction is rolled back then those changes are ignored. This Hot Backup operation occurs for InnoDB Tables. For the tables that use other storage engines like MyISAM, warm backups are taken where database lies online but no change can be made to any database object while backup operation is in progress.

The MySQL Enterprise Backup offers different kinds of backups like Full and Incremental Backups. The whole instance can be taken a backup or a single database can be taken a backup. These backup operations can be scheduled. Every backup operation is considered as a Job.

This MySQL Enterprise Backup comes as a package which can be downloaded from here. When it is installed on your computer, it creates an executable file mysqlbackup.exe which is used to backup your database. After installing it, settings should be configured in Workbench. After installing, clicking on Online Backup takes you to the settings page.

In the above screenshot, there are three prerequisites which have to be configured.

• The first setting is providing the path to MEB Executable. You need to provide the path where the executable file mysqlbackup.exe exists. This lies in the directory where you installed the MySQL Enterprise Backup package.
• Second setting is creating a directory to store the generated backups. Provide any location on your computer. Give the folder name as you wish. If that folder doesn't exist in the specified location then you can click on Create Directory button which creates a folder in that location.
• In MySQL, different operations are carried out by different accounts which have permissions to perform specific operations. For backup, there is a dedicated account called mysqlbackup. While configuring this for the first time, you can create this account with a password.

After configuring all the options, click OK which lets you to go to Backup Wizard.

• Click on New Job.
• You can give a name to this job and can add comments to it.
• Down to it, there are three tabs Schedule, Contents and Options.
• In Schedule tab, you can schedule when a full backup should occur and when an Incremental backup should occur.
• In Contents tab, you can select either Full Instance for backup or a specific database for a backup. There comes a warning when you select partial database backup. If I write about it here, this post will get lengthier. For more information about Partial Backup Warning, click here.
• In Options tab, you have options of changing the backup directory, Compressing Backup (which comes only for non-incremental backups) and Applying log after backup.

I'll post about how to take backup and recover the backup in my future posts.