January 10, 2005 at 9:39 am
I have been asked to specify a hardware/software solution for the SQL Server backups in my organization. Currently I have nightly jobs in SQL Server that back up our databases and transaction logs to disk (to a share on another server), and then our Systems staff does a nightly backup of that server.
We have purchased the SQL Server Agent for Backup Exec, but our Systems staff only intends to use it for disaster recovery (i.e. they're only going to keep the previous night's backup).
If you had a fairly unlimited budget, what hardware/software would you recommend? I'm trying to decide whether it would be best to just get another copy of Backup Exec (and either have Backup Exec do the backups directly from SQL or just back up the backup files from disk), or whether I should use some sort of juke box or tape library system...
If anyone has any advice or recommendations, I'd very much appreciate it. Our goal is to be able to recover any of these files to restore a database as it was on any given day.
January 10, 2005 at 10:14 am
Haven't used it, but Sonasoft has an enterprise backup/dr system that you might want to look at.
Personally I used Litespeed to backup to disk, then a tape system to grab that. If I need to recover I just restore from tape, then restore to SQL using Litespeed. This gives me two things.
1. Quick recovery to last night from disk. I used to just keep one day on disk (space for 2 days).
2. 2 copies of last night's backup, so if the tape dies, I'm not stuck.
I've had issues with BackupEvec agents in the past. Not to say it's not a good product, it's just given me problems and so I don't like using it.
January 10, 2005 at 2:46 pm
Besides the fact LiteSpeed compresses as it does the backup conserves space. Might also consider getting a higher speed dedicated network between the servers so when you do you backup it has less contention to move between them and I would do the backup locally then push to the other server a direct backup to the share is a bit slower in many cases because of the verificationa dn nogiation between the two systems going on the entire time.
January 11, 2005 at 12:33 am
I agree. BackupExec causes more problems then it is worth. Try LiteSpeed or SQL Safe from Idera. Both offer compression which speeds the backup process up tremendously.
Good Luck
Marvin
Marvin Dillard
Senior Consultant
Claraview Inc
January 11, 2005 at 4:13 am
I agree with previous posters.
Use LiteSpeed or similar, if you haven't much data use the native SQL routines
Whatever you do, don't use an "agent" that hooks into SQL.
It backups a treat (mostly) but restoring is a nightmare.
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