Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Backup one server, restore to another

I frequently restore the backups of my production server to my standby/test
server. They (the servers) aren't completely identical, however. Production
has 3 logical disks for OS, data and logs while standby has only two disks.
The real problem though is the time it takes to do a restore using EM. It
seems that I have to restore the full backup then each transaction log
separately. It would be very convenient to be able to specify (using add
device) the full backup and all of the logs I want at once, then only have
to change the paths to the database and log files one time. I've read
through BOL but it is silent on this issue. Is it possible through EM? Or
should I be looking at a third-party app from e.g. Red Gate?You could write a SQL script that implements the WITH MOVE option of the
backup command. Enterprise Manager is a nice tool, but I haven't figured
out how to automate a series of mouse clicks. For repeatability, you have
to go to T_SQL scripts.
Geoff N. Hiten
Senior Database Administrator
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
"Ron Hinds" < __ron__dontspamme@.wedontlikespam_garagei
q.com> wrote in message
news:e3vH%23OT0GHA.4648@.TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
>I frequently restore the backups of my production server to my standby/test
> server. They (the servers) aren't completely identical, however.
> Production
> has 3 logical disks for OS, data and logs while standby has only two
> disks.
> The real problem though is the time it takes to do a restore using EM. It
> seems that I have to restore the full backup then each transaction log
> separately. It would be very convenient to be able to specify (using add
> device) the full backup and all of the logs I want at once, then only have
> to change the paths to the database and log files one time. I've read
> through BOL but it is silent on this issue. Is it possible through EM? Or
> should I be looking at a third-party app from e.g. Red Gate?
>

No comments:

Post a Comment