If you want to have more flexibility with filenames and compression options, you can use:
find /my/path/ -type f -name "*.sql" -o -name "*.log" -exec \
tar -P --transform='s@/my/path/@@g' -cf - {} + | \
pigz -9 -p 4 > myarchive.tar.gz
findfind /my/path/ -type f -name "*.sql" -o -name "*.log" -exec
This command will look for the files you want to archive, in this case /my/path/*.sql and /my/path/*.log. Add as many -o -name "pattern" as you want.
-exec will execute the next command using the results of find: tar
tartar -P --transform='s@/my/path/@@g' -cf - {} +
--transform is a simple string replacement parameter. It will strip the path of the files from the archive so the tarball's root becomes the current directory when extracting. Note that you can't use -C option to change directory as you'll lose benefits of find: all files of the directory would be included.
-P tells tar to use absolute paths, so it doesn't trigger the warning "Removing leading `/' from member names". Leading '/' with be removed by --transform anyway.
-cf - tells tar to use the tarball name we'll specify later
{} + uses everyfiles that find found previously
pigzpigz -9 -p 4
Use as many parameters as you want.
In this case -9 is the compression level and -p 4 is the number of cores dedicated to compression.
If you run this on a heavy loaded webserver, you probably don't want to use all available cores.
> myarchive.tar.gz
Finally.