We are planning to have some robust solution for backup of our db in MySQL server.For this I have some general question for Percona XtraBackup 2.1.4 product.
1)To take backup, do we need to install xtrabackup 2.1 on each server?
2)Can it deliver backups as zip files to remote , to aws (amazon web services s3), and other ftp?
3)Can it do incremental backup?
4)How much time would it take for 8GB db?
1 - on each MySQL server where you would like to take backups from or to prepare your backups
2 - you can make a very simple script that does archive the backup directory and then uses s3cmd, ftp or other tool to upload it wherever you wish. Note that uploading large files to S3 may be problematic, so it’s better to split them into like 1-2GB parts before.
3 - [url]Percona XtraBackup
4 - depends on your hardware capabilities and on how your database is busy during the backup. For most of the time it’s just simple files copy, so disk array throughput matters.