Taking backups using XtraBackup

XtraBackup is an open source backup software provided by Percona. It copies flat files without shutting down the server, but to avoid inconsistencies, it uses a redo log file. It is widely used by many companies as a standard backup tool. The advantages are that it is very fast compared to logical backup tools and recovery is also very fast.

This is how Percona XtraBackup works (taken from the Percona XtraBackup documentation):

1. It copies your InnoDB data files, which results in data that is internally inconsistent; but then it performs crash recovery on the files to make them a consistent, usable database again.
2. This works because InnoDB maintains a redo log, also called the transaction log. This contains a record of every change to the InnoDB data. When InnoDB starts, it inspects the data files and the transaction log, and performs two steps. It applies committed transaction log entries to the data files, and it performs an undo operation on any transactions...