Database Utilities
Delightful Labor provides several utilities to help you manage your database.
Database Backup
You will periodically want to back up your database to prevent data loss or to maintain a historical snapshop of your information.
Note that the images and pdf documents that you have uploaded are not stored in the database. These image and document files are stored in the folder /catalog. You should periodically back up this folder in addition to your database.
To create a database backup, select "Admin / Database Utilities / Backup your database":
You will now see a screen that offers several backup options.
- Backup As: you can generate your backup file in a compressed format (zip or gzip), or as plain text. The compressed formats create a much smaller backup file and will download from the server more quickly. However, you will need a decompression programs (such as 7-Zip) to view them.
- Include "DROP TABLE": when checked, the backup file will include instructions to remove database tables before restoring them. This option is necessary when restoring a database and is checked by default.
Click "Run Backup" to proceed.
After a few moments (depending on the size of your database) you will see a screen that allows you to select the location of your backup file.
The backup file is in a language called SQL (Structured Query Language) and is the standard computer language for communicating with databases. If you should need to restore a database, you will need a program such as the open source myPHPAdmin to apply the backup file to your database.
Optimizing Your Database
Delightful Labor provides a utility to optimize your database. Optimization removes empty space from your database and can improve the performance of Delightful Labor. To optimize your database, select "Admin / Database Utilities / Optimize your database":
To run the optimization, click the button. Consider backing up your database before running the optimization.
You will receive a message following the successful optimization of your database.
