July 4, 2011 at 5:33 am
The Backup Exec SQL agent is especially useful for customers who wish to enable backup management within one product and not have to go configuring multiple jobs or plans, etc.
Some companies wish to trim down the administrative effort and use one central point for managing backups, hell some companies don't even have a database administrator who could create the plans, jobs, etc.
The Backup exec GUI allows you to see the databases as selectable objects (same as any of the disk drives or system state).
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"Ya can't make an omelette without breaking just a few eggs" 😉
July 22, 2011 at 7:43 am
Our setup is similar to yours but instead of using the SQL Agent from BackupExec, or some native (Microsoft) backup process, we're using Redgate SQL Backup 6.
It shink the database during the backup process and then move it to another drive location on the network (D2D)
Then we only have to take the shink database and put it on tape (D2T)
So our total solution is a D2D2T...
Extract from the report email:
Database size: 87.856 Gb
Shink size: 8.663 Gb
Compression rate: 90.14%
Backup time: less than 25 minutes. (D2D include!)
Our ERPs runs a lot of night batchs. Our backup window must be under one hour.
I keep a week copy on the network disk if I need to do a quick restore.
Restore is done with the same software and take about the same time to restore.
Carl Corwin,
Son of Oberon, King of Amber
Father of Merlin, Prince of Chaos
July 22, 2011 at 8:00 am
I am not a fan of direct-to-tape database backups using Backup Exec, ArcServe or other SQL Server backup agents for several reasons:
1. The tape drive is usually a shared resource, so it may not be able to backup a database at the point in time that I want it backed up. Also, a tape drive can only backup one database at a time, and I may need to backup multiple databases at the same time.
2. Restore requires the use of the tape backup software, and the last thing I want is a backup admin restoring a database. And believe me, the last thing backup admins want to do is to be involved in a complex server recovery, like the restore of the master database on a cluster.
3. I like to have the current backup on disk, because it is the one that I am most likely to need to restore from, and I usually need it in a hurry. Tape has a higher media failure rate than disk, so there is a higher safety factor in a restore from disk.
4. If the tape drive is in use, I may have to wait until its current operation is complete to start a restore, so recovery time is unpredictable.
5. You can only restore one database at a time from tape, while you can restore multiple databases at the same time from disk.
I prefer to backup the database and transaction logs to disk with a regular SQL Server backup, and then have the backup files saved off to tape on a daily basis. It requires more disk, but I think that the safety of the database has to be the first consideration.
In short, get rid of the direct-to-tape backups.
July 25, 2011 at 6:03 pm
Hi All,
A quick update to this question I posted a month ago. The evaluation version of Backup Exec that comes with most LTO3 + drives does not restore an agent backup. You need to purchase the real version of the software. There is an upgrade path to the software that costs about $500.
I have at my disposal the Red Gate Tool Box (backup software), Symantec (Backup Exec) and the TSQL solution that comes with SQL Server.
Here is my preferred solution.
1 - Keep 1 week of backups on disk when possible. Depends on age of server and disk space.
2 - Swipe daily backups to tape. (Backup Exec File Agent)
3 - Compress backups if database > 2005 using SQL Server.
4 - Test tape backups on monthly basis at head quarters.
5 - Create a TSQL jobs for full or differential backup 1 x day and hourly log backups into same file.
6 - Create TSQL job to do maintance on the weekends (dbcc checkdb, indexes, statistics).
Both 5 & 6 use Brad McGehee's ebook on Backup and Maintenance plans as reference.
I like this solution for the following reasons.
A - More backups on disk. Reduces need to go to tape.
B - Breaking the process into TSQL jobs allows of granular restartablity. An idea I like from my ETL background.
C - Backing up from disk to tape eliminates the cost of Backup Agent.
D - Testing the tapes offsite allows for the worst case DR situation.
I am slowly working towards replacing the existing Symantec database to Tape solution with the one above.
Question:
Has anyone used Solid State Drive to reduce the time to write backups to disk? The prices of these drives have dropped and they have 3x the speed when writing data.
Thanks all for your comments.
- John
😀
John Miner
Crafty DBA
www.craftydba.com
July 26, 2011 at 7:42 am
Glad we could help.
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