SQL Server 2008 backup best practices

Question

Without not reason, I lose all my data in my database. Fortunately this was just test data, but this made me to think what will happen if this was done with a production db.

Ultimately, every developer got a db problem and want to rollback the db. We don't do things to protect the db, as we think its a DBA work, but then we got into trouble...

What are your backup best practices?

Answer 1

Since all the developers are also the DBAs where I work, we're collectively responsible for our backup strategy as well - if you care about the data, make sure you're at least informed about how the backups work, even if you're not part of the actual decisions.

The VERY first thing I do (before I even have any databases set up) is set up nightly maintenance plans that include a full backup, and direct those backups to a central network share on a different computer (our NAS). At the very least, for the love of your job, don't put the backups on the same physical storage that your database files sit on. What good are backups if you lose them at the same time you lose the disk?

We don't do point-in-time restores, so we don't do log backups (all our databases are set to Simple recovery mode), but if you want logs backed up, make sure you include those as well, as an acceptable interval as well.

On a side note, SQL 2008 supports compressed backups, which speeds up backup time considerably and makes the files much, much smaller - I can't think of an instance where you wouldn't want to use this option. I'd love to hear one, though, and I'm willing to reconsider!

Answer 2

Choosing the right backup strategy is one of the most important factors a DBA should consider at the point of developing the DB.

However the backup strategy you choose depends on a number of factors:

1. How frequent is transaction carried out on the DB: are there thousands of transactions going on every minute or maybe few transactions per day? For very busy database, i would say, take full nightly backups and transaction log backups every 10 mins or even less.
2. How critical the data content is: may it be employee payroll data? Then you'll have no acceptable excuse or you may have a few angry faces around your car when you want to drive home! For very critical database, take nightly backups possibly in two locations and transaction log backups every 5 mins. (Also think of implementing mirroring).
3. Location of your backup location: if your backup location is close to the DB location, then you can afford to take more frequent backup than when it is located several hops away with not excellent bandwidth between.

But in all, i would say, schedule a nighly backup every night, and then transaction log backups at intervals.

Answer 3

Here are some points from my own experience:

• Store your backups and SQL Server database files on the different physical storages. Otherwise, if your physical storage failed you will lose both backups and database files.
• Create your own SQL Server database backup schedule.
• Test your SQL Server backup. If you never tested your backups I have a doubt that you will be able to restore your database if the failure occurs. Time to time you need to have the practice to restore your backup on a test server.
• Test your recovery strategy - here is another tip. If the failure occurs how much time do you need to restore your database to the working state?
• Backup SQL Server's system databases.

And this isn't a whole list, you can find more tips in my article https://sqlbak.com/blog/backup-and-recovery-best-practices/