[dba-SQLServer] Database backups

jwcolby jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com
Sat Feb 25 10:46:34 CST 2012


How does an incremental database backup work?  I kinda have a picture in my head, only the changed 
stuff is backed up, to the same file (maybe?) and so forth.  Not even sure if that is true.

What about restores from?  Is the entire thing restored?  Only changes from a specific date / time?

My client will never have more than my expertise (which is scary) so I need to get a handle on this.

ATM they are backing up the entire thing every night using "windows backup", but I doubt that they 
are testing restores.  I have found some scripts that seem to do a good job (though how would I 
know?) here:

http://ola.hallengren.com/downloads.html

I have built them up in a _DISMaster database where I keep such things.  I actually ran them and got 
a full backup of every user database (that is what I specified to the SP) in the default backup 
location in a directory structure that this script builds if necessary.

It looks like this thing could be the basis for a backup strategy, but I need to know more about 
restores specifically.

The client is a call center for insurance claims.  The entire company is about 50-60 people with 
about 25 people in the database all day.

The data was going into Access MDB backends but we are moving towards SQL Server backends.  They 
work all day adding / modifying data.  I would like to be able to do a "point in time" kind of 
restore in case of disaster.  AFAICT that means that I have to do a backup every N minutes / hours 
or something like that in order to ensure that we can get back to a point in time N minutes / hours ago.

Am I close?  As I have said many times I am not a SQL Server admin so I need to learn enough about 
this specific subject to handle this aspect of the business.

Any advice or concise focused readings you can point me to would be very much appreciated.

-- 
John W. Colby
Colby Consulting

Reality is what refuses to go away
when you do not believe in it



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