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marleyboy

My fingers are Crossed matin, Ihave faith that youll soon have it spik n spam mate

ZTD

jamesd wrote: »

ZTD, have a look at MySQL Enterprise Monitor and the replication monitor. It's a tool available as part of MySQL's support subscriptions, only (not open source). Even without that it's easy enough to have alarms firing if replication stops running or lags excessively.

Never used it - never needed it. I used logcheck set to give me singing and dancing naked cheerleaders if the thing stopped.

jamesd wrote: »

But you're right on the hosting company competence side. It's one advantage of a remote slave, say in the MSE office, where it's easy for MSE people to verify that it's replicating properly as well as delivering an offsite backup source.

Have two. When they stop they're an absolute buggger to get started again. It think the problem may lie on the slave side, because I've never had 2 slaves stop simultaneously.

Often the easiest/only possible way to get it going again is to wipe the slave, then let it "catch up" from the beginning. A bit nerve-wracking if you've only got one...

jamesd wrote: »

Non-techie version: MySQL has built in as standard up to the second backup capability. All you need to do is turn it on and use it.

And watch if it breaks.

jamesd wrote: »

It's worrying that the hosting company even talks about hourly backups when MySQL has up to the second capability as standard.

Because they're easier if you're from a more generic database background.

ZTD

EdInvestor wrote: »

This being my third experience of a site losing a large quantity of quality information due to backup failure, I'd like to inquire of the techies here (without seeking to ascribe any blame to anyone) just what exactly the problem is with backups?

Are they tedious and time consuming to do properly?

Oh yes.

EdInvestor wrote: »

Are they technically difficult to do properly?

Depends on how far up the size food chain you are. When your daily backup takes more than 24 hours - you have a problem.

EdInvestor wrote: »

Do they cost money/use scarce resources?

A resource is only scarce if you don't have the money. Let's assume you have a system of 10 daily backups and an "end of month" backup. Your full backup fits on 1 tape. You have 22 tapes. Large tapes can cost £50 each or more. Thats over a grand just in tape - excluding the drive.

EdInvestor wrote: »

Is backup storage a problem?

Not usually.

EdInvestor wrote: »

Should backups be an option in a hosting package which is charged for?

They normally are.

EdInvestor wrote: »

Are website owners unwilling to pay host companies to do backups?

Many times they are.

EdInvestor wrote: »

Do technical people value the information contained on database type websites (such as this one) or do they tend to view the site content as just a pile of old threads which don't really have a value (and thus don't need to be backed up)?

It all comes down to money.

EdInvestor wrote: »

Is there some other reason why backup failure seems to be so common?

Money. Yes time is an issue - because you must test that stuff is working and the only way to do that is to try it. In understaffed IT departments, that is often something put off forever. But money is the biggy.

EdInvestor wrote: »

Any clues as to how to understand and resolve this problem would be really helpful

Hope that helps.

peter999

Following threads have been chopped at 29-6-07.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=463777
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=462954
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=460660
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=465979

Looks like everything before this date may be missing. :eek:

Strangely threads from Oct-04 & earlier seem ok.

Hope you manage to restore threads as it's a fantastic resource.
People have sweated blood in those threads.

peter999

pavlovs_dog

lol its quite funny in a way finding threads that are still there, but not all there

how is the finding a suitable backup point work going?

pennypuppy

Hey MSE Martin, you will give yourself heart trouble. Calm yourself man, get it in perspective....we are all still here.:beer:

jamesd

ZTD, if both stop it'll usually be a master problem (damaged binary log - bug probably - or network breakage). If only one slave stops then yes it'll be something for that slave.

If you have two slaves the easiest way to fix significant breakage (completely out of sync and not recoverable) is usually to copy from the working one to the broken one. Or even do it just because it has predictable time to fix and is easy once you have the routine in place.

Can't really say why it's tough for you to get the slaves started again, it's usually pretty easy. Don't really want to get into the details, though - do enough of that elsewhere.

EdInvestor, the answers to your questions about time depend on the size of the database and resources available. If you are big you'll probably have database slaves that get copies of all changes from the main server. You can easily back up from them using a normal file copy most of the time. Not good to do only this for various reasons but it's the best fast way for regular backups. A competent and professional hosting company should have proper backup arrangements in place if they offer MySQL hosting. Including using the binary log for up to the second backup as a matter of routine. It's not that hard to do this right. But it does take some skill and money and dealing with the occasional glitches. And hosting companies aren't well known for spending money on invisible necessities or really capable staff, though some do.

gallygirl

Em, a lot of this technical stuff is going ovr my head.

Martin, have you tried switching it off & back on again?

If that doesn't work, take the battery out, rub it on your trousers, blow into the battery 'hole' and put it back together.

It worked for my laptop.......

So, that's my technical knowledge exhuausted then;) .

Good luck, it's really helpful to go back over old postings. However, at the ate everyone posts we'll soon have replicated it all anyway!

Tiff_2

Hi Martin!:hello:
Ali forgot to mention giving it a good smack!
If all else fails, I'm sure Sir Trevor will investigate. Better still, call Rogue Traders or Watchdog! It's just a shame that Esther Rantzen's retired. (showing my age now!)

I'm sorry - I'm not making light of this terrible situation Martin. I'm just not a techie star as many here are & I wish I could help.
Scant comfort I know hun, but you've still got your all important sidebar articles and guides, your books and your weekly MSE post - so your life-changing work hasn't been halted.
You haven't just provided information to your loyal following Martin - you've educated us! And that is something that can't be lost.

All the people who contribute to the site are still here, still ready to help with whatever we've learned here and from our own experiences.
The MSE spirit and ethos are as alive as ever - we ain't going nowhere hun!
Much Love,
Tiff xxx

zag2me

Time to write a disaster recovery plan I think (and test it out). Backups are the most important part of any internet site, but without testing them in a disaster recovery situation they are often useless.

I'm sure you know all this now in hindsight, but there are loads of things you can do to improve the situation after a major hardware failure. The first priority is 100% data recovery, then it should be the speed of restoration.

Oh and don't pull your hair out to much, we've all been there. Imagine this type of thing happening in a power station or school with peoples real coursework! there is always someone worse off

Good luck

I still cant get to the last page of this thread....

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=295326&page=51