Backup Planning assistance

Hi all,

New to database admin and I am attempting to work out a god backup schedule.

The database is a failry critical system so minimal downtime and dataloss from failure is the key to this.

Assuming storage is not an issue for me can anyone add some help.

What I was planning was a full backup an Sunday night and Wednesday nights at 6pm using

'backup database helpdesk to BK1 with noformat, init, stats'

Differential backups each night at 6pm using

'backup database helpdesk to BK1 with differential, noformat, noinit, stats'

Then a transaction log backup every 4 hours during the day with ??

'backup log helpdesk to Bk1 with ??

This is the part I am stuck on...

Firstly should all backups be going to the same logical backup device? in this case BK1 which points to a network share or should each go to a different location?

And what switches should I be using with the TL backup?

If anyone has a good backup T-SQL script they use I would really appreciate some help.

Cheers
MarkMark

When you say minimal downtime - do you mean when the backup is being taken or on recovery of the database?

I always take the method of keeping the backup strategy as simple as possible. I personally would take a complete backup every night (if you have enoght time - ie not a 24 hour operation) and trans log backups as you see fit. This can all be set up via Enterpise Manager very easily.

As for where to store - depends on what type of crash you wish to recover from - at the extreme level thay need to be stored on external media (eg tape) so that they may be restored on another server.|||Mark

When you say minimal downtime - do you mean when the backup is being taken or on recovery of the database?

I always take the method of keeping the backup strategy as simple as possible. I personally would take a complete backup every night (if you have enoght time - ie not a 24 hour operation) and trans log backups as you see fit. This can all be set up via Enterpise Manager very easily.

As for where to store - depends on what type of crash you wish to recover from - at the extreme level thay need to be stored on external media (eg tape) so that they may be restored on another server.|||Thanks for the reply,

When I said down time I did mean time to recover, so you are correct.

I think I will take your advise and do a fullbackup each night. Cheers