Backup and Recovery

Backup and Recovery, Clustering

In our recent webcast on HA & DR basics for DBAs, we got a bunch of questions that couldn’t be answered fast enough. Here you go: Q: Do any of these techniques work for companies with just 1-2 IT staff? To keep things simple, I’d check out virtualization replication like VMware SRM. SRM isn’t…

My ex-girlfriends would have been surrounded by red and yellow.

The First Step to the Poor Man’s Runbook

Last Updated February 9, 2017

Backup and Recovery, Processes and Practices

In theory, before you introduce a new system – database server, load balancer, virtualization infrastructure, etc – you build a robust runbook that documents how you’ll handle every conceivable scenario. When there’s any kind of failure, you’ll simply turn to chapter X and start going through a precise checklist that will guide you to the…

Backups Gone Bad: The Danger of Differentials

Last Updated February 13, 2017

CHECKDB and Corruption, SQL Server

As your databases get bigger, you’re going to run out of time to do nightly full backups. You’re going to be tempted by the siren song of differential backups. The idea is that you’ll do full backups on the weekends, and then differential backups each night of the week. Differential backups aren’t just the sum…

Who’s testing your restores? No, really – who’s testing your restores?

Last Updated April 7, 2021

Jes Schultz

I recently posed the question, “Who’s taking your backups?” This is of utmost importance, because your business’s data is the business. Protecting it and backing it up need to be priorities for DBAs. Now, for my next question: who is responsible for restoring those backups? The saying goes that your data is only as good…

Who’s taking your backups? No, really – who’s taking your backups?

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Jes Schultz

Who in your company is responsible for database backups? It’s Me Fantastic! Check your backup job. Did it run successfully the last time it was supposed to? Are the files where they are supposed to be? Have you checked the integrity of the backup files by restoring them to a secondary server? If you are…

SQL Server Tricks: How Can I Restore a Subset of My Tables to A Prior Point in Time?

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Kendra Little

This question came up when working with a client last week. The team mentioned they were planning to move some tables into a new filegroup. The new filegroup is intended to help quickly restore data in cases when a monthly process goes off the rails and leaves the data in some tables in a bad…

Maintenance Plans and Roombas Suck – in a Good Way

Last Updated February 9, 2017

Every now and then, I hear an experienced DBA say, “SQL Server maintenance plans for backups, indexes, and statistics? What, are you kidding me? Nobody uses maintenance plans because they suck.” They say maintenance plans are so inflexible because they insist on defragging or rebuilding every index, every time, regardless of how little the table…

Free Scripts to Test Your Backups on World Backup Day

Last Updated February 13, 2017

March 31st is World Backup Day, and while most of the press will be focusing on backing up your priceless lolcat photos, it’s still a good time to talk with management about your database backups. Your boss will have some simple questions, and you can arm yourself with a few easy queries. Are We Backing…

How to Test Your Backup Strategy: Five Simple Questions

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Kendra Little

Backup strategies are like rashes: people tend to ignore them for as long as they can, then they ask a specialist if it’s going to be OK. There’s a lot of good ways to back up databases. The challenge is finding best strategy for your data. To find out if your SQL Server backup strategy measures…

My Easy New Year’s Resolutions (Guest Post)

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Hi! I’m your SQL Server. I know you don’t usually listen to me, so I’ve decided to take a drastic step and find you where you spend all your time – Brent’s blog. Seriously, you need to spend less time on the intertubes and more time on the error logs. You’re lucky this post is…

Beep beep, back that thing up. Wait, on second thought...

The 9 Letters That Get DBAs Fired

Last Updated September 2, 2021

Architecture, Backup and Recovery

I’m proud to say that I’ve only lost one job in my life. I was a grocery store bagger when the store came under pressure to increase their percentage of minority workers. They laid off all of the Caucasian baggers, but I’m not bitter. I actually loved bagging groceries, and if I hadn’t been laid…

Unless you're running Developer Edition in production. Arrr, pirates!

Local Backups Are The New Offsite Backups

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Years ago, Microsoft’s Jim Gray said that memory is the new disk, and disk is the new tape. (You can read more in his 2006 “Tape is Dead, Disk is Tape, Flash is Disk” PowerPoint presentation or the Google Quick View.) Many of the things he predicted have come to pass, and it’s time we…

DBA Nightmare: SQL Server Down, No Plans

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Managing data is about managing risk, but no matter how we good we are at managing risks, they’re still risks. We’ve seen several high-profile data failures recently: Sony’s database of Playstation users and financial data was hacked Amazon’s supposedly independent cloud services went down together, and some data was lost permanently The state of Texas…

SAN Snapshot Smackdown

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Backup and Recovery, Storage

On Twitter, several SAN pros were saying their snapshots can pull off some nifty stuff. Well, it’s time to find out just how true that is. Let’s say we have a data warehouse with: One 2TB database, using SQL Server partitioning – needs 8 data files and 1 log file One 200GB database for reporting…

How to Make SQL Server Backups and Restores Faster

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Every day, your servers do hundreds or thousands of operations that are all resource-intensive. You want these operations to finish as quickly as possible, because they’re absolutely mission critical, and you’ll lose your job if they’re not done successfully. Whole companies have been lost when these operations fail. Yet do you really know how to…

How to REALLY Compress Your SQL Server Backups

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Backup and Recovery, Stack Overflow

StackOverflow’s database servers are hosted in a colo facility. They pay by the byte for transfer in and out of their servers, so it’s really crucial to compress the database backups as much as possible. The smaller the backups, the less they pay. They’re already using backup compression, but they wanted to explore more ways…

What’s In Your Bug-Out Bag?

Last Updated February 9, 2017

Backup and Recovery, Processes and Practices

In a recent webcast on disaster recovery planning for small businesses, I talked about building a bug-out bag. My Bug-Out Bag Every IT professional should have a bug-out bag in the trunk of their car with enough stuff to let them hit the road for 24-48 hours straight. This gear helps you react more confidently to…

Designing a Recovery Strategy for StackOverflow

Last Updated February 13, 2017