Comments - Full Backup and Restore with Mariabackup
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We should execute the command, 'mariabackup --prepare', after performing 'mariabackup --backup'. Must the command 'mariabackup --prepare' be executed right after finishing 'mariabackup --backup'? Or I may wait till the time of db restoration?
Hi! This is a very good question. I encourage you to verify the time needed in your setup to do the prepare step and based on your SLA decide when to do it (at backup step or at recovery step).
Please take a look at this presentation where Oli Sennhauser explain why he suggest to do the prepare step just after the backup step. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQRuK7y2zuc
Does the prepare step touch all the files inside the backup directory, not the files on /var/lib/mysql directory? If we perform 'prepare' right after backup, it helps to save the time to 'prepare' the backup files for restoration. Is it the reason why we should perform 'prepare' immediately right after the backup? If the 'prepare' time is insignificant, is it no difference whether we do the 'prepare' step right after the backup, or just before db restoration?
it ony touched the backup directory. Note, that you can't always do the prepare on the same machine, apparently when you do not backup into a directory. You can backup to "stream" , i.e stdout, and ship that stream to another box, or elsewhere, to a cloud. Second, maybe you do not want to run an IO and CPU-expensive "prepare", on the box where a server is running.
Having said that, yes, maybe it is more convenient to run prepare on the same box right after backup, if the points above are not a concern.
Please read carefully the documentation and take a moment to look the Oli's mariabackup presentation. You will find all the answer you are looking for.