Automation can be done by creating CRON jobs on your server. The following link has complete example code to backup the database automatically
http://atoztechnical.blogspot.com/2010/08/how-to-automate-database-backups.html
or
First write a script that uses mysqldump command to backup your database and store in specific directory.Now we are going to automate the process by executing this script at a particular time everyday.
Execute the following command as root user
[root@vasu /]# crontab -e
This allows you to edit the crontab file for a user. It has six fields they are
1.Minute
2.Hour
3.Day of Month
4.Month
5.Day of Week
6.Command to be executed
Add the following line to the crontab file and close it.
[root@vasu /]# crontab -e
39 19 * * * backup.sh
~
~
~
~
~
ESC:x
crontab: installing new crontab
[root@vasu /]#
Now your backup.sh script will be executed 39 minutes, 19th hour everyday. If u want to see the list of cronjobs for a user, then execute
[root@vasu /]# crontab -l
39 19 * * * backup.sh
backup.sh :
mysqldump -h hostname -u userbane -ppassword dbname > path/to/directory/backupname.sql