Best practices for backing up a MySQL DB

I've recently discovered that our production web servers that run off MySQL are not being backed up regularly (or at all). I'm used to backing up SQL Server DB's but don't have a ton of experience with MySQL DB's. Any best practices for using 'mysqldump' or any other DB backup tools?

I'll probably cron job the schedule so that it's done nightly and then backup the files with my backup system.

Thanks.

Best Practices to take MySQL server backup:
MySQL Replication

Setup Replication in MySQL. You will have to setup Master and Slave server. All read-writes to the DB could go to your Slave Server.
Advantage of having Replication is you can take a backup from your slave server without interrupting Master server, Your application will continue to work on Master without any downtime.
Using MySQL Dump

If your data set is small (I realize "small" is a relative term.. to qualify it, let's say

• Only backup the data that changed since a prior backup

• Compressed Backup - Saves storage upto 90% and many more..

Reference:
http://www.mysql.com/products/enterprise/backup/features.html
http://www.mysql.com/products/enterprise/backup.html

StackExchange Database Administrators Q#50664, answer score: 32