tar over ssh

You can use tar over ssh

tar zcvf - /tmp | ssh user@ip_address "cat /backup/tmp.tar.gz"

Or

tar zcvf - /tmp | ssh user@hostname "cat /backup/tmp.tar.gz"

You can also tar and untar to remote host with specific dir.

tar -zcf - /tmp | ssh user@ip_address tar -C /path/to/remote/dir -zxf -