There are times when the usual methods of backing up a database do not cut the mustard – especially when it comes to Magento databases. Normally a Magento database can be backed up via the tool>backups module within the backend – however you may find that on some servers the process of backing up the database might time-out in your browser.
At times like these it is useful to know the following techniques for backing up and restoring via SSH.
First of all to backup your database you will need to firstly connect to your website via SSH – normally like so (on MAC):

ssh username@ip.add.re.ss

– enter your password
This will normally get you in to your website – that is if you have SSH enabled for your domain on your chosen hosting platform.
Next we will perform a nice clean backup – what I tend to do if it is a Magento website is to navigate to the backups folder within the Magento var folder by doing the following:

Hi! My recent project had some specific requirements regarding the work with database. Since DB server had some limitations (regarding number of queries), and fairly big number of queries that needed to be executed I created a solution that included temp tables. And now, I’d like to explain how to use them and why.

Suppose that in your application, you need to execute a calculation on a set of tables. The usual approach is to create a query that defines the joins between multiple tables, and selects the data from the joined tables. The problem with that approach is that every time you call that the query, the tables have to be rejoined in order to create the result. And that is usually fairly resource hungry. Instead, you can get around the problem by putting the results into temporary table, so the values are there while the database connection lasts.