Keep in mind you can restore to a new linode to see how it will function first. That linode is charged on a pro-rated basis, so if you work quickly its only going to be a few cents.
As stated in the linode backup docs, a disk snapshot might catch your DB in the middle of a transaction, so you should dump the DB to disk on a schedule, and then restore the disk followed by restoring the DB from the dump.
It's great that Linode offers the backup system, and for a reasonable price, but I have several Linodes and wanted to be able to restore individual files from different days. Say, for example, if I futzed around with Apache config and ended up rendering it useless, or if I forget the "where" clause in a "delete from".
So we use BackupPC (http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/). It's not as easy to set up as Linode's backup -- it requires some configuration, and securing it takes a little bit of effort -- but it's a great solution. With file pooling and compression, I can store months of backups for multiple Linodes on a single other small Linode instance.
I love Linode's control panel and administration system. When I was choosing a virtual solution a few years ago they were by far the best.
This article is devoid of insight. The author didn't even do basic research on the topic, because, as already mentioned, the easiest route--creating a temporary linode--isn't covered. Linode's own documentation covers back-ups much better.
The referral code at the bottom was the icing on the cake--and then I noticed the self-submission.