Best method for archiving MYSQL table data?

[staticwave]

I recently inherited a website and they have a simple back-end area which was created using phpmaker. The back-end displays various MYSQL database tables.

There are two tables which hold registration information related to promotions/contests the company runs online. The client wants to begin archiving the registration data monthly, but still have the data accessible for future export or review.

So, can anyone tell me what the best approach would be to achieve this? I read about partitioning and Maatkit , but I'm not sure which - if either - would be a smart choice.

I would prefer to keep the table names the same because the table name is referenced in several instances within the PHP code running the promo/contest applications. I would also like for everything to be 'automatic' or at least executed at the click of a button; though I realize that might not be completely realistic.

I should note that I do not have the phpmaker project file and have been unable to obtain it.

Any help on this matter would be a great help. Thanks.

[smantscheff]

To me it seems that you just need a regular database backup. I would set up a daily cronjob which dumps the whole database into a file with the current date in the filename. Then you can afterwards reconstruct any state of the database for a given date. Another option would be to use binary logging - make a backup of the current database status, and by means of the binary log you can reconstruct any point in the lifetime of your database after the backup.