Best practice way to safely backup Contributor application data stores

[whitestone]

I'm new to EP admin and looking for best practice advice on backing up my Contributor application data stores. I've been told by my predecessor that the proper way to backup an application's database is to first remove the application from its pad, backup the application's database, and then re-add the application to its original pad. This sounds rather awkward to me considering I have several Contributor applications that will need to be backed up every night.

Is it safe to backup a data store while its application is attached to a pad?

Is it safe to backup a data store while a synchronize, reconcile or GTP are happening?

Is it safe to backup a data store while users are opening, saving, or submitting elist items or should backups only be run after all user activity has stopped?

Is there a way for me to block users from saving/submitting while a backup is running?

[SomeClown]

Yes.

No.

No.  After all activity

Set the web barrier (take the application offline), either through the Admin Console or a macro.

In addition,
Make sure you have a matching backup of the Analyst directories.  The files providing a linkage between Analyst and Contributor are stored in the Analyst folders.  If these are not matching, you could lose data on the next synchronize.

The procedures of your predecessor are not wrong, just more detailed than really needed to be (those procedures made the restore of an app much easier).  Not following those procedures means you'll have a few extra steps should you need to restore from backup.

[whitestone]

Excellent! Thank you very much for your responses and for setting my mind (what's left of it) at ease.

Will