If I plan things properly I will not break log shipping - I agree that I should not play around with the way that something has been designed to work.

How...

The big problem is the size of the db and the full back up. Currently the DB is 350Gb and growing at 2Gb per day.

The full backup takes about...

Thanks for the excellent feedback. The client wants more than just a gold star and the comment about proving that the backups are working is 100% correct!

However, he is...

The full backup/restore once a month is a customer requirement - I won't go into detail....

I like the TOM, DICK and HARRY approach - it will need a clever approach...