XtraBackup for fast and reliable hot-backups
Pros
- The ability to stream backups (using netcat or socat) to a target destination has many uses, for example, 1)We do not need to store a backup locally on the database server 2) We can stream backups into object storage using GCSFUSE.
- The hot-backup functionality is probably the most important function. We are able to take backups of our primary instances with minimal impact on the database instance.
- XtraBackup has many parameters that can be tuned, allowing us to increase performance or reduce by using the parallel thread parameter for example.
- Partial backups.
- The ease of use when doing restores. Simplified, fast and accurate.
Cons
- The only feature that could use some improvement is partial backup restores. For example, I have a multi-tenant database at the schema level running on a single Percona Server instance. As a tenant grows too large for the share instance or becomes a noisy neighbour we need to move a the tenants schema to its own instance with minimal downtime, meaning that we would run the new instance as a replica with replication filters until failover. In terms of doing a consistent backup, there may be challenges and it is currently possible with XtraBackup, but it would be great if the process was simplified and ensured to be consistent.
Return on Investment
- Secure, reliable, fast and consistent backups. Open source with zero cost.
- We satisfy our regulatory requirements.
Usability
Other Software Used
Percona Server for MySQL, Percona Server for MongoDB, Percona XtraDB Cluster
