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Seeking feedback on backup strategies

  • January 16, 2004 at 11:24 am

    #107294

    I've done a lot of reading on backups and disaster recovery strategy; all of them seem to come down to the same conclusion. If your backups and restores don't work, you might as well be looking for work elsewhere. OK, now I'm paranoid!

    We are pretty much up 24/7/365 and there can be no data loss. The bad thing is that currently we don't have the disk space on the new SQL2000 cluster to do disk-to-disk backups, so they have to go straight to tape via Veritas. I'm trying to come up with a backup schedule that will fit the business' views and not interrupt users.

    Tentatively, I was thinking Fulls once a week, differentials every four hours, and I'm unsure about incrementals/log backups. I'm sure this is flawed, but that's why I'm posting.

    What have some of you implemented for your company?

    Thanks,

    Jen

  • January 16, 2004 at 12:04 pm

    #490513

    I had a direct attached tape device and created a tape backup device.  We ran fulls nightly transaction logs every 2 hours and differentials at noon and 6pm.  I've never used veritas but I'd make sure you can restore the backups.

    Hope that helps.

    Tom

  • January 16, 2004 at 2:22 pm

    #490548

    I'd go with your schedule, though if I could I'd do the diffs to disk. Anything to have a 2nd copy. Same for the logs, recovery will be quicker if you ever need it.

    For the log schedule, I'd go at least every 15 minutes, maybe every 5 or 1 if you are generating revenue. Have to balance that v the time to restore on another system (more files, more time). Be sure you test and automate as much as possible of the restore.

    I'd also budget and get $$ for more disk or a 2nd tape system. Depending on a single tape might not be the best solution. If you're clustered and have already spent some serious $$, I'd spend a few more to have a backup for my backup. The day you need to restore is likely the day a tape or tape drive went south.

  • January 16, 2004 at 3:09 pm

    #490557

    Thanks for the help, especially on the log schedules. Right now I believe we're waiting on other hardware, and once that's in place, we'll be able to put more disks aside for disk-to-disk backups. Our tape drive is an SDLT that I believe has 4 drives and 52 slots that hold tapes. At least we shouldn't run out of tape .

    What affect does running log backups every 1 or 5 minutes have on the system\users? Is there any performance considerations?

    Jen 

  • January 16, 2004 at 4:13 pm

    #490568

    It does add a small load, but it also runs quicker (each one runs quicker) because there are less transactions to back up. Won't affect your diffs, but be sure you stagger the log and diff (and full) schedules if you can so they don't conflict.

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