9 Steps to Implement Offline Backup at Azure IaaS: Backup a MySQL to Azure Storage

A good backup is probably something you will thank for when s%$t hits the fan.

If you chose MySQL as your data infrastructure and Microsoft Azure as your cloud infrastructure, you will probably thank this procedure (that I actually turned into a a script).

Chosen Products

Our first task is choosing the backup and automation products. I selected the following two:

1. Percona XtraBackup: a leading backup product by Percona. The product creates an hot backup of the database that is equivalent to disk copy. This method is much faster to backup and recover than mysqldump. It also support increment backup.
2. Azure SDK Tools Xplat: a node.js based SDK that enables command line interface to the various Azure services including Azure Storage.

Backup Implementation Guide

1. Install Percona XtraBackupsudo wget http://www.percona.com/redir/downloads/XtraBackup/XtraBackup-2.2.3/binary/debian/precise/x86_64/percona-xtrabackup_2.2.3-4982-1.precise_amd64.deb sudo dpkg -i percona-xtrabackup_2.2.3-4982-1.precise_amd64.deb apt-get update sudo apt-get install -f sudo dpkg -i percona-xtrabackup_2.2.3-4982-1.precise_amd64.deb
2. Install Azure SDK Tools Xplatsudo apt-get update sudo apt-get -y install nodejs python-software-properties sudo add-apt-repository ppa:chris-lea/node.js sudo wget https://npmjs.org/install.sh --no-check-certificate | sudo sh sudo apt-get install npm sudo npm config set registry http://registry.npmjs.org/ sudo npm install -g azure-cli 
3. Install a backup procedure
1. Get a publish settings file from Azure (can be done from the console).
2. Get account name and the matching base64 key from the Azure console.
3. Import the publish setting filesudo azure account import /opt/mysqlbackup/mysqlbackup.publishsettings
4. Create a Storage Container sudo azure storage container create --container container_name -a account_name -k base64_account_key
4. Run a full backup and prepare it twice to make it ready for recovery sudo xtrabackup --backup sudo xtrabackup --prepare sudo xtrabackup --prepare
5. Add the frm files and mysql database to your backup sudo chmod -R +r /var/lib/mysql/ sudo cp -R /var/lib/mysql/myql/* /mnt/backup/mysql/ sudo cp -R /var/lib/mysql/yourdb/*.frm /mnt/backup/yourdb/
6. Tar the files into a unique daily name_now=$(date +"%Y_%m_%d") _file="/mnt/backup/mysqlbackup$_now.tar.gz" tar cvzf "$_file" /mnt/datadrive/mysqlbackup/
7. Copy the folder to Azure Storage using
8. azure storage blob upload -f "$_file" -q --container container_name -a account_name -k base64_account_key
9. Create a cron that will run it daily: > sudo cron -e * 0 * * * /opt/mysqlbackup/daily.backup.sh >/dev/null 2>&1

It may be tough. It may be resource and time consuming. However, you must have good recovery process to keep your a$$...