Usage and Implementation Overview

Because Holland is very pluggable, it may first seem a bit confusing when it comes to configuring Holland to do something useful. Out of the box, Holland is designed to backup MySQL databases using the mysqldump provider. This is the simplest setup, and may be sufficient for most people. However, others may wish to have more fine-grained control over their backups and/or use another method other than mysqldump.

For instance, one can configure a backup set to backup certain databases using mysqldump, others using the mysql-lvm plugins etc. All this is done by a mix of providers and backup-sets.

Backup-Sets

Each backup-set implements exactly one provider and will inherit the default values of that provider. These values can be overridden to adjust the behavior of the backup set. This includes defining what databases or tables to include (or exclude) in the backup, the type of compression used (if any), what locking method to use, among other things.

Providers

Providers essentially provide a backup service for use in a backup set. As of Holland 0.5, there are 5 providers:

• mysqldump

  Uses the mysqldump utility to backup databases.

• Example

  This is used solely as a template for designing providers. It otherwise does nothing.

• MySQL + LVM

  Backup MySQL databases using LVM snapshots which allows for near lockless or fully lockless (when transactional engines are used) backups.

There are also plans to eventually implement the following providers:

• MySQL Cluster

  MySQL Cluster already offers a simple way of producing lockless backups, however these methods do not often include table-creation data, routines, etc. In addition, backups from the Cluster are stored on each of the Data Nodes.

  Therefore, this provider would facilitate backing up and aggregating the Cluster backups into one centralized location, as well as backing up the periphery data necessary should a full restore be necessary.

As Holland is a framework, it can actually backup most anything as long as there is a provider for it. This includes things that have nothing to do with databases. The idea is to present an easy to use and clear method of backing up and restoring backups no matter the source.