From "CU Chem Stockroom - Project Outline v2012-11-28v2", pg 2:

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QuickBooks (QB) on Windows 7 (Win) Virtual Machine (VM)

File back up: QB "company" file

With the data file, a restore gets back the core business data.

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• Requires account with correct A&S file server access.

VM back up: Win7

With a VM back up, in addition to a data file snapshot (see above), also gets a copy of the structure. Thus consider doing at least whenever there is a change to the structure, such as changes to the QB structure or OS configuration. (And right before major changes to ensure current roll-back image is available!)

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Requires shutting off QB, and takes a while (~1/2 day).

• Web kiosks will not be affected during this shutdown. Only staff who otherwise would be using QB would be affected.

Web kiosk server on Linux Virtual Machine (VM)

Q: Bother backing up MySQL database (DB)?If yes:

A: Yes! Transaction logs would be valuable in debugging processing problems. Also, logs are depended on when the QB DB is not running (which will be very often- basically when it's not being used).

File back up: MySQL kiosk transaction records

Export MySQL DB to a file.

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• Requires account with correct A&S file server access.

VM back up

With a VM back up, in addition to a data file snapshot (see above), also gets a copy of the structure. Thus consider doing at least whenever there is a change to the structure, such as changes to the web (Apache) structure, DB structure (MySQL), or OS configuration. (And right before major changes to ensure current roll-back image is available!)

Do it manually.

Requires shutting off web services so kiosk will not be operational. Although smaller than the QB VM, still will take a while (~1/2 day).

Other

Require structure/ rebuild docs for QB (Brightworks) and Apache/MySQL/PHP?/etc (Gorges).