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Backup and Recovery

Mirrors aren’t backups

February 4, 2009

Architecture, Backup and Recovery, Database Mirroring

Are you using any of these technologies as a method of database protection? Database mirroring (keeping two database servers synchronized with the same data via SQL 2005/2008) Replication (copying records between databases) Log shipping (copying log files to another server and restoring them immediately) SAN-based mirroring (storing two copies of your database on two different…

Back up your database to the network – not local disk

September 30, 2008

Brent Ozar

Backup and Recovery

Database administrators: are you backing up your SQL Servers to local drives? If so, you need to stop for a minute to think about a few possible side effects, and maybe think about backing up to a network share instead. Why? I’m glad you asked! Get your data off the server faster The only reason…

Microsoft DPM 2007 review

August 7, 2008

Brent Ozar

Backup and Recovery

I spent some time last week digging into Microsoft Data Protection Manager 2007, Microsoft’s solution for SQL Server backups, and I’m going to share some of my findings here with you, dear reader. “But You Work For Quest Software! You can’t write a Microsoft DPM review!” Yeah, disclaimer time – I work for the people…

SQL Backup Software: Part 5 – Justifying the Cost

February 27, 2008

Brent Ozar

Backup and Recovery

I’ve talked about how a SQL backup compression program can help database administrators, but now it’s time to convince the boss. We have to sell management on why it’s worth the money. First, a few words about my approach to database administration, because I think it’ll help DBAs in general. Being a database administrator is…

SQL Backup Software: Part 4 – Features Still Missing

February 8, 2008

Brent Ozar

Backup and Recovery

In this issue of my multi-part series about SQL Server backup compression software, I’m going to talk about some features that database administrators might find useful, but don’t yet exist in the current generation of backup software. In-Depth Backup & Restore Progress Monitoring On multi-terabyte data warehouses – especially those running new backup compression software…

SQL Backup Software: Part 3 – New Features for Backup/Restore

December 16, 2007

Brent Ozar

Backup and Recovery

In the last decade, Microsoft has brought SQL Server a long way – bringing in things like .NET code, data encryption, partitioning, and a darned slick management user interface. But one of the things that hasn’t changed has been the process of backing up and restoring data. We still back up to a file, and…

SQL Backup Software: Part 2 – Quad Cores are Changing the Game

November 28, 2007

Brent Ozar

Backup and Recovery

In my last post, Why Native SQL Backups Suck, I talked about the weaknesses of native SQL Server backups. Today, I’m going to extend that a little by talking about one of the greatest surprises for DBAs in recent history: the advent of dirt-cheap multi-core processors that don’t cost extra for SQL licensing. How SQL…

SQL Server Backup Software: Part 1 – Why Native SQL Backups Suck

November 27, 2007

Brent Ozar

Backup and Recovery

Before we start looking at SQL Server backup compression software, we need to spend a few minutes looking at the weaknesses of the native SQL Server backup process. In order to judge the fixes, we have to know what’s broken. Native SQL Server backups take the same disk space as the data. When we back…

SQL Server Backup Best Practices

October 17, 2007

Brent Ozar

Backup and Recovery, SQL Server

I’ve been backing up SQL Servers for almost a decade now, and it’s time to share the lessons I’ve learned. All of this is my own opinion – your mileage may vary – but I’ll try to explain the reasoning behind the choices I make. I won’t address log shipping or snapshots this time around.…