Who is successfully running VSS snapshots with any third party Backup software without any collisions?

  • I am currently using RedGate Backup Pro 7, which I love, no complains. But since Nimble VSS backups were enabled at SAN level, my peaceful mornings are now long hours of fixing and re running backups. Both use VDI. If one runs (grabs I/O), the others fails. VSS snapshots are staying for good, so eliminating those is not a solution for me.

    As far as I know, IDERA uses VDI. Am I right about that?

    Is someone already running VSS snapshots at SAN level plus any third party backup product with decent backup compression and encryption?

  • Bump!

    WOW! Nobody?

  • Two things I'd do. One, schedule my SQL backups such that the timing does not interfere with the Nimble backups. Two, configure the backups such that if they fail they automatically retry.

  • Lynn Pettis (6/2/2016)


    Two things I'd do. One, schedule my SQL backups such that the timing does not interfere with the Nimble backups. Two, configure the backups such that if they fail they automatically retry.

    Lynn... Thank you so much for reply!!!!

    How can accomplish 1st? IT scheduled Nimble VSS backups to run every hour. All our databases are in simple recovery model (business decision). I run FULLs weekly with daily differential, so pretty much is impossible for me, specially for the RedGate DIFFs, to avoid a conflict. May I know which schedule you have and frequency?

    Also... I used Ola Hallengren solution, which I love. But I had to customize it. I made a single TSQL jobs with three steps as follows

    EXECUTE [dbo].[Over100GB_InsertionJob]

    Then

    --Declare variable that will contain set with databases over 100GB

    DECLARE @DBList VARCHAR(MAX)

    SELECT @DBList=COALESCE(@DBList + ',', '') + DBName

    FROM [DBgrowth].[dbo].[Over100GB]

    ORDER BY DBName

    --Let's take a FULL backup only if we have biggies.

    IF @DBList IS NOT NULL

    BEGIN

    EXECUTE DBgrowth.dbo.DatabaseBackup

    @databases = @DBList, -- replaced by Over100GB data set.

    @Directory = '\\server\share\BigDataSets',

    @BackupType = 'FULL',

    @BackupSoftware = 'SQLBACKUP',

    @Compress = 'Y',

    @Encrypt = 'Y',

    @EncryptionAlgorithm = 'AES_128',

    @EncryptionKey = 'xxxxxxxxxxx',

    @CompressionLevel = 2,

    @NumberOfFiles = 5,

    @verify = 'N',

    @checksum = 'N',

    @CleanupTime = 24,

    @LogToTable = 'Y'

    END

    Then step #3

    PushD "\\server\share\BigDataSets\box02\" &&("forfiles.exe" /S /M "*DIFF*.sqb" /d -1 /c "cmd /c del @file") & PopD

    My big, big problem; when backups retry, step #3 is never reached, so I ended with DIFFs that should not be there. I always delete DIFFs once the FULL was taken.

  • I may be blind, but I went to your other thread to see if you answered my question there regarding the Nimble backups and could not find anything. Are the Nimble backups that are taken every hour full or differential backups? They are recorded in the backup tables as they are consistent SQL backups from what you have said.

    Any other question you have asked, I can't answer as I don't work in an environment like yours.

  • Lynn Pettis (6/3/2016)


    I may be blind, but I went to your other thread to see if you answered my question there regarding the Nimble backups and could not find anything. Are the Nimble backups that are taken every hour full or differential backups? They are recorded in the backup tables as they are consistent SQL backups from what you have said.

    Any other question you have asked, I can't answer as I don't work in an environment like yours.

    I know 🙂 ... I checked msdb, they run every hour. I think I misread what you wrote and I thought you also have Nimble at work? I wanted to know your own schedule.

    It seems really difficult, if not impossible, make both work on same SAN. Probably the answer would be SAN replication, which actually we are working on that, and run TSQL backups on the secondary?

  • sql-lover (6/3/2016)


    Lynn Pettis (6/3/2016)


    I may be blind, but I went to your other thread to see if you answered my question there regarding the Nimble backups and could not find anything. Are the Nimble backups that are taken every hour full or differential backups? They are recorded in the backup tables as they are consistent SQL backups from what you have said.

    Any other question you have asked, I can't answer as I don't work in an environment like yours.

    I know 🙂 ... I checked msdb, they run every hour. I think I misread what you wrote and I thought you also have Nimble at work? I wanted to know your own schedule.

    It seems really difficult, if not impossible, make both work on same SAN. Probably the answer would be SAN replication, which actually we are working on that, and run TSQL backups on the secondary?

    Are you going to answer my question or not? Are the Nimble backups full backups or differential backs?

  • Lynn Pettis (6/3/2016)


    sql-lover (6/3/2016)


    Lynn Pettis (6/3/2016)


    I may be blind, but I went to your other thread to see if you answered my question there regarding the Nimble backups and could not find anything. Are the Nimble backups that are taken every hour full or differential backups? They are recorded in the backup tables as they are consistent SQL backups from what you have said.

    Any other question you have asked, I can't answer as I don't work in an environment like yours.

    I know 🙂 ... I checked msdb, they run every hour. I think I misread what you wrote and I thought you also have Nimble at work? I wanted to know your own schedule.

    It seems really difficult, if not impossible, make both work on same SAN. Probably the answer would be SAN replication, which actually we are working on that, and run TSQL backups on the secondary?

    Are you going to answer my question or not? Are the Nimble backups full backups or differential backs?

    FULL backups, with COPY_ONLY option.

  • sql-lover (6/3/2016)


    Lynn Pettis (6/3/2016)


    sql-lover (6/3/2016)


    Lynn Pettis (6/3/2016)


    I may be blind, but I went to your other thread to see if you answered my question there regarding the Nimble backups and could not find anything. Are the Nimble backups that are taken every hour full or differential backups? They are recorded in the backup tables as they are consistent SQL backups from what you have said.

    Any other question you have asked, I can't answer as I don't work in an environment like yours.

    I know 🙂 ... I checked msdb, they run every hour. I think I misread what you wrote and I thought you also have Nimble at work? I wanted to know your own schedule.

    It seems really difficult, if not impossible, make both work on same SAN. Probably the answer would be SAN replication, which actually we are working on that, and run TSQL backups on the secondary?

    Are you going to answer my question or not? Are the Nimble backups full backups or differential backs?

    FULL backups, with COPY_ONLY option.

    Thank you. Next question, to refresh my memory and not have to read back, how often to run your Redgate SQL full and differential backups?

  • Lynn Pettis (6/3/2016)


    sql-lover (6/3/2016)


    Lynn Pettis (6/3/2016)


    sql-lover (6/3/2016)


    Lynn Pettis (6/3/2016)


    I may be blind, but I went to your other thread to see if you answered my question there regarding the Nimble backups and could not find anything. Are the Nimble backups that are taken every hour full or differential backups? They are recorded in the backup tables as they are consistent SQL backups from what you have said.

    Any other question you have asked, I can't answer as I don't work in an environment like yours.

    I know 🙂 ... I checked msdb, they run every hour. I think I misread what you wrote and I thought you also have Nimble at work? I wanted to know your own schedule.

    It seems really difficult, if not impossible, make both work on same SAN. Probably the answer would be SAN replication, which actually we are working on that, and run TSQL backups on the secondary?

    Are you going to answer my question or not? Are the Nimble backups full backups or differential backs?

    FULL backups, with COPY_ONLY option.

    Thank you. Next question, to refresh my memory and not have to read back, how often to run your Redgate SQL full and differential backups?

    We have about 1k databases, distributed across four servers. FULL runs weekly, DIFFs runs daily and this is true for each SQL server. Several databases are above 100GB, in fact, we have a 2TB database. FULLs never collide between each other, means, if server1 runs FULLs on Sundays, then server2 will run FULLs on Monday.

  • sql-lover (6/3/2016)


    Lynn Pettis (6/3/2016)


    sql-lover (6/3/2016)


    Lynn Pettis (6/3/2016)


    sql-lover (6/3/2016)


    Lynn Pettis (6/3/2016)


    I may be blind, but I went to your other thread to see if you answered my question there regarding the Nimble backups and could not find anything. Are the Nimble backups that are taken every hour full or differential backups? They are recorded in the backup tables as they are consistent SQL backups from what you have said.

    Any other question you have asked, I can't answer as I don't work in an environment like yours.

    I know 🙂 ... I checked msdb, they run every hour. I think I misread what you wrote and I thought you also have Nimble at work? I wanted to know your own schedule.

    It seems really difficult, if not impossible, make both work on same SAN. Probably the answer would be SAN replication, which actually we are working on that, and run TSQL backups on the secondary?

    Are you going to answer my question or not? Are the Nimble backups full backups or differential backs?

    FULL backups, with COPY_ONLY option.

    Thank you. Next question, to refresh my memory and not have to read back, how often to run your Redgate SQL full and differential backups?

    We have about 1k databases, distributed across four servers. FULL runs weekly, DIFFs runs daily and this is true for each SQL server. Several databases are above 100GB, in fact, we have a 2TB database. FULLs never collide between each other, means, if server1 runs FULLs on Sundays, then server2 will run FULLs on Monday.

    Okay, when you say daily is that once a day for each database on the diffs?

  • Daily DIFFs on each database, each server, yes, usually midnight or so.

    Sor for instance, if I have database ABC, XYZ on server1. I take a FULL backup on Sunday, everything that we have on that box, ABC and XYZ on this example. Then DIFFs on both , Monday to Sat. Next time the FULL runs, which here will be Sunday, the job deletes the DIFFs for that week.

    Nimble VSS backups run every hour, each day of the week, all the time.

  • Based on this, the next question is when are the Nimble backups scheduled? If at the top of the hour, schedule your backups to run fifteen minutes later. You could, if needed, spread them out over several hours during the night when the databases are less used (hopefully).

  • Lynn Pettis (6/3/2016)


    Based on this, the next question is when are the Nimble backups scheduled? If at the top of the hour, schedule your backups to run fifteen minutes later. You could, if needed, spread them out over several hours during the night when the databases are less used (hopefully).

    That won't fix the problem. I will always have DIFFs overlapping that 1hr time frame, so randomly, one or more DIFFs will fail.

  • sql-lover (6/3/2016)


    Lynn Pettis (6/3/2016)


    Based on this, the next question is when are the Nimble backups scheduled? If at the top of the hour, schedule your backups to run fifteen minutes later. You could, if needed, spread them out over several hours during the night when the databases are less used (hopefully).

    That won't fix the problem. I will always have DIFFs overlapping that 1hr time frame, so randomly, one or more DIFFs will fail.

    Well, don't know what to tell you.

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