Automated backup of database

Discussion in 'Databases' started by drewnoakes, Aug 3, 2011.

  1. Now that my site Dive Seven - free online scuba dive logging has been online for a while and is gaining popularity, the number of database changes increases daily and I need a more robust approach to backups.

    Currently the only option I can see is to:

    1. log into the control panel manually
    2. navigate to the site/database
    3. request a backup (fast)
    4. connect to the server via ftp
    5. copy the 380MB file to my local machine (slow)
    6. delete the file from the remote server
    7. zip the local file up
    8. copy the local file into my cloud-based backup service

    Is it possible to automate any of these steps? Particularly the first three steps (I can script the FTP portions).

    Many thanks,

    Drew.
     
  2. Ray

    Ray

    Unfortunately at this time this is a feature we have no plans in the near future in offering. We do have a lot of projects lined up in the pipeline and we will need to prioritize our resources accordingly.
     
  3. Hi Ray,

    Thanks for the reply. I'm sorry to hear this. Right now it's a real pain having to do these backups manually, and I am about to take on other commitments that will make this very difficult for me to do each day.

    Some ideas:

    - Could you zip the backup file while moving it to the App_Data folder? Right now, my files are 380MB unzipped, 64MB zipped. One of the worst parts of doing backups is waiting over an hour for the files to FTP across the wire. If they were zipped (even with a low-CPU zip) this would be much easier.

    - Could you provide a web service where I could request a backup? If there were a URL I could get... something along the lines of http://cp.Winhost.com/sql-backup?user=USER&pwd=PASSWORD&siteid=SITEID&dbname=DATABASE ...if that were available, then I could script the entire thing on my end. This is basically the only bit that cannot be scripted without driving a web browser somehow.

    - Could database backups be done automatically, such that the files rotate automatically in the same way that the httplogs do?

    This is, so far, my only issue with Winhost. You guys have been great. However this causes enough disruption to my daily life that I am either going to have to work out how to automate a browser session to do these backups or look around for alternative hosting. Hopefully one of the above suggestions is simple to implement, and you have enough bandwidth.

    Many thanks,

    Drew.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 14, 2015
  4. Automation for SQL Backups Hosted at Winhost

    I am interested in having automated backups as well. I would hope with SQL that the new compression is being used for backups, since SQL 2008. That in essence does make the backup a more compact zipped file.

    This is my question to support and was told to post it here to get movement:
    Is there not a way to automate backups? I know we can use the website to backup and it puts the file in the app_data folder. I would love to have a SQL agent job on our server kick off a script to tell your server to backup to our folder, then we can pull down the file via FTP and remove it from our folder. We just want to have a way to ensure our data is backed up and kept from our perspective.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 14, 2015
  5. curtis

    curtis Winhost Staff

    Thanks for your suggestion.
     
  6. I agree with Drew.

    This will definitely factor into my decision to use Winhost in the future for any non-trivial projects I develop from here on out. I've been very happy with Winhost so far but automated database backups seems like a no-brainer.
     

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