May 8, 2014 at 8:29 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Backup Responsibility
May 8, 2014 at 11:16 pm
First to post!!! /self promote with no good content timseedorf.com
Our environment has many SQL servers and we use a few third party backup tools. On a few environments, I manage local backups of SQL but those are typically for dev purposes. We use Avamar for backups in our EMC environment which hosts Relativity by kCura and then we use Appassure for SQL backups and other backups. I am not responsible for making sure the backups work necessarily and especially not performing them. We have a person responsible for that...he gets me the data I need and I restore or attach, etc...
So if a disaster happen, I have to hope he is doing his job. Rather than hope though, I do monitor that the backups are working and and resolve errors with him. I do not test them, however, Appasure automatically tries to mount the backup to make sure it's good.
So, we've got a two man process as it relates to backups. However, by utilizing third party backup software we can restore to every hour AND we can check the backups for mount-ability at once.
May 9, 2014 at 2:08 am
As a freelance developer/solutions architect I am never one with this sort of responsibility. Hats off to you guys and gals who do this on a daily basis - from one of the many people you have saved 😉
In my experience the responsibility that the backup process works is with ALL stakeholders when the process is designed, ratified and proved (or at least shown to work). The process should define who is responsible for the validity of the backups on an ongoing basis and how this is achieved.
I will be interested how formal responsibility is defined for everyone but also what roles those responsibilities fall to. Also, is it usually one person's or groups's sole responsibility? Are different validation steps performed? If so is it a coordinated process?
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
May 9, 2014 at 2:13 am
Our backups are restored to a secondary location nightly thereby prooving that the backups can in fact be restored.
This is a process worked out in collaboration between DBAs and sysadmins. Teamwork is the key. ASSUME and you make an *** out of U and ME.
May 9, 2014 at 2:40 am
Some of the SMEs are now using VM snapshots/backups as their backup solution rather than a proper SQLServer backup. Works some of the time... Other places rely on the auto close functionality of the database and then use a file level backup agent.
And with the previous 2 methods emergency mode doesn't always work.
I always prefer to work with the corporate backup teams who know that a dba is there to help.
Too many of the places I have seen, even the large companies that ought to know better, dont have any strategy of testing backups. Oh the attitude is new hardware is better, of the 3rd party server host wont have a disaster because of xyz!
May 9, 2014 at 3:36 am
Not a fan of anything but "native sql backups" personally. We backup all our databases to a network share and the tape backup kicks in from there.
I'm surprised 3rd party backup software for SQL even exists. Just asking for trouble in using them IMO.
We're always restoring backups to Test systems, etc so plenty of tests are regularly done.
May 9, 2014 at 6:19 am
We use native SQL backups that are then backed up to tape using Symantec BackupExec. As the DBA/Network Admin I'm responsible for backing up all company data and testing it.
I do test restores at least once a month manually, no automated system.
May 9, 2014 at 6:53 am
in our house:
- each team of "infrastructural software suite" people handles backup and recoverability conform the businesses needs and uses the appropriate scheduling system.
- SCOM monitors is all 🙂 and sends the needed mails/textmessages as configured
pretty straightforward. That's how I like it 😉
Johan
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May 9, 2014 at 7:07 am
I work for an office (not in IT) in a smallish county government in metro Atlanta and would be classified as an application manager, I suppose--our office has a couple of databases that I maintain that are absolutely essential to our business purposes. Backups are technically the responsibility of dba's in our IT Department and they do a fine job. But through the years I've come to discover a couple of simple truths about data: (1) nobody cares about YOUR data as much as YOU do and (2) a dba cannot be expected to understand the data as much as you the business user does. So I believe the business user should play a role in the backup process and not simply rely on the dba. That may mean learning to backup and restore data yourself so you can see the restored data and test it thoroughly to make sure the data looks okay.
May 9, 2014 at 7:54 am
ckeller 10913 (5/9/2014)
...So I believe the business user should play a role in the backup process and not simply rely on the dba. That may mean learning to backup and restore data yourself so you can see the restored data and test it thoroughly to make sure the data looks okay.
Totally agree. I also note that you actually test the data restored whereas some others appear to assume that a successful restore implies that the data is valid. That is not something that I would want to leave to chance or to a technician without intimate knowledge of the data. I would hope that data validation would occur with at least a sample of backups just to check that the process is continually working as appears.
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
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