Tips To Gain More from Server Backup Software
Powerful backup and restore capabilities of SQL server provides reliable protection to your data. With an efficient backup and restore setup, you can sleep calmly at night. You are aware that in case of issues, your data can be recovered with minimal downtime as well as negligible disruption to users.
Tips to gain more
from backup software
Use MSSQL server
backup application - Windows 2000 and NT don’t backup database files that
are open, when the program is running. You need to stop the SQL server service
to backup open database files, which can affect production negatively. SQL server backup
application is capable to perform backups, when the database is in use as well
as includes any kind of changes made, during backup process.
Before using evaluate
3rd party software -
Check the potential 3rd party
packages to find out, if it can backup in-use databases. Actually, some
packages stop MSSQL server service to backup files, which can be attained using
Windows backup program.
Create a backup &
recovery plan -
Evaluate the various disastrous situations, when you will
need to restore the database. For example, how to recover, if one disc on the
server including transaction log goes missing or server gets destroyed in a
fire. It is not just how to restore important but how quickly also needs to be
considered. Basically, backups allow users to stay connected to databases but
this is not so, during restoration process. Planning allows you to define the
kind of necessary data backups and schedule their frequency.
Filegroup backup
strategy is best -
Full backup for large database cannot be conducted in
your assigned time-limit. Filegroup strategy will be helpful because it reduces
restoration time significantly, in case of disc failure. You can divide the
database in several groups and tables.
Use differential
backup whenever necessary -
Differential backup means backing up all
changes made, since last full backup. Current values of each row are captured
and not the changes occurred, since last full backup process. Intermediate data
values gets skipped, thus restoration with differential backup is fast.
Use mix of log and
differential backups -
A full backup of active database can be scheduled on
weekend. In addition, perform differential backup every evening to record daily
data changes as well as have transaction log backup several times in the day to
capture all data changes made. This mixed strategy allows restoring process
faster in comparison to reinstate full database backup or multiple transaction
log backups.
Avoid using
inappropriate differential backups -
Differential backup appropriateness
depends on how you index and update the data. If your tables include index
columns with ascending numbers like customer number or order number than it is fine
for differential backup.
The reason is that all the new data gets added to the end of
existing data pages. In case of random data entry occurrence throughout the
tables then differential backup is inappropriate. Therefore consider how to
index, store and modify the data before deciding to use differential backup.
Test your strategy
-
Now is the time to verify that your restore process works efficiently and not
when disaster strikes. Testing method helps to check issues with tape drives.