Hot Backups, an article which describes how to use LVM to take backups from active filesystems, has been published recently on Linux Magazine #261.
The Internet is full of guides for backing up your personal information, in case your computer dies. If you have a valid backup of your data, you will be able to restore your information into a new computer if you lose the old machine for whatever reason. Sadly, most Internet tutorials are focused on backing up stationary sets of files, such as family pictures, which are not being changed while the backup is performed.
My article mentions some of the traditional Unix backup utilities and why it is a bad idea to use them for backing up sets of data that may be under use (such as active databases). Finally, I describe LVM snapshots as part of a strategy for copying data which may be changing as it is transferred to backup storage.
You may find the article in Linux Magazine #261.