MySQL is one of the most popular database management systems to use when developing interactive web sites that need to utilize persistent data sources. As with all other popular database management systems, MySQL also includes several ways to backup your important data.
In this article I'm going to show you how to backup your databases using the mysqldump utility that comes with MySQL. We will look at several examples of using MySQL dump, including how to backup your database to a file, another server, and even a compressed gzip file.
This article assumes that you have MySQL installed locally on a Windows, Unix or Linux machine and have administrative privileges on that machine. This article also assumes that you have at least a small amount of exposure to MySQL and the SQL language syntax.
