Well, if it is unix, you don't have to worry about it if you are running it with cron.

The cron daemon generally runs you script and emails any output to you.

First, you need to tell crond about your script. You'd do something like this in /etc/cron.d/backup (you don't have to call it backup -- that is just the filename I chose):

MAILTO="whereever you want to email any output to"
# the format goes minute hour day month day_of_week
# this will run the backup script as root ever day at
# 4:23 in the morning
23 4 * * * root /path/to/backup/script.pl
[download]

Now, in your script, print any errors to STDERR, and die if you have to. This will be mailed to you.

cheers.