How Frequent Do you Perform Restoration Test
-
If you have a critical database that has to be onlien at 7X24 with considerable size, for example, over 100GB, How often do you perform database restoration test to ensure the backup set is restorable. Thanks for all your inputs.
-
We performed it once to make sure my backup and restore method actually worked. Since then it's never been tested.
24x7, 225 GB. If I take it down for any amount of time all my users and management begin screaming at me (even if it's scheduled).
-SQLBill
-
Of course, nobody perform the restoration test in their production server.
If you only test the method workable, How are you sure the backup set is restorable if some kind of disaster happens?
-
Any restoration, disaster test, etc HAS to be done on the production system since I don't have a test system. Management has never seen a reason to buy a test system.
I have recovered from a major crash. We had a hardware failure back in November. At that time the backup and restore strategy had never been tested (thanks again to management). Of course it failed. At least it wasn't my fault. The vendor that sold us the backup software forgot to mention that it wasn't the current version and that there was a bug that just happened to affect our setup AND that there was a fix. Nope, they didn't tell us any of that until AFTER the restore didn't work.
Before we came back up officially, I did a backup and restore successfully by following a new plan.
Now I do 'native' SQL backups to disk and then back that .bak file up to tape.
-SQLBill
-
Hi SQLBill,
quote:
Any restoration, disaster test, etc HAS to be done on the production system since I don't have a test system. Management has never seen a reason to buy a test system.sorry, to hook right in.
24 x 7 and no need for test system, but everybodies crying when Server is unavailable? I guess, no need for a standby server as well, right?
According to another thread, fire senior management. Or maybe yoou should the first citation from this http://www.sqlsecurity.com to your management
Cheers,
Frank
--
Frank Kalis
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
Webmaster: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs
My blog: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs/frankkalis/[/url] -
It really surprise me you don't have a test system and why mamagement think it is unnecessary to have one.
-
I can understand SQLBill's situation. Because I am also sailing on a similar boat. I have requested for a stadby Server some time back... Still on hold.. Donno when will it come. And I know it might not happen. Since Money talks. It would cost them $$$$$. So I am being very very careful in taking each extra measure. I am not with negetive mindset... But I am always prepared for a disaster (both mentally as well as scripts, etc.. with frequently updating them...)
.
-
We got around the problem on one major system by selling the idea of clustered servers. Development/QA runs on the backup node (named instance) and cannot fail over to production, but production (default instance) can fail over to development. The production system gets clustering and the development system is just as powerful as production, great for developers trying to fix performance problems. We also restore the dev box with a full production backup after every major release (about 3-4 times a year).
-
I agree with the above comments. No test or standby server is very short-sighted.
To get back to the original question. If you cant restore your backup, you could try
"RESTORE VERIFYONLY". It may give you more confidence in the backup files.
-
We test about once a month normally. Change the tapes out of cycle once every two years unless otherwise flaky. Have two backup sets (one local, one tape). And I more than once a month pull DBs backup for testing and developement so I have an idea of the live data and what happens as I make changes.
-
You could do the restore to the production system but with a different database name. This is hardly ideal, because you will have to be very careful.
I read these threads and say thank God I work where I do. I have testing systems for my backups and I get time to do them once a month. No exceptions. I wouldn't test once I month if I had to do it to a production environment, but I would test it sometimes. Too much rides on proper backups.
-
Since I have 50 servers, a number of which are the development equivalent of the production server, we tend to test on a regular basis just as part of work.
Steve Jones
Viewing 12 posts - 1 through 11 (of 11 total)
You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply