Backup Standards and Suggestions

Hi Folks,
I haven't worked at multiple SQL Shops so question for those who have;
SQL Backups, which is the perfered way using SQL Server to do the backups or
to use a 3rd backup agent like Backup Execs SQL Agent to do backups?
Right now we use SQL Server to do daily backup to .BAK file; which later
server ops write to tape. And continously we keep running into space
issues; so it was suggested we use Backup Execs SQL Agent to do backups
directly to tape. But I have never used Backup Exec so I couldn't really
say which is better. I know SQL Server has ability to write directly to
tapes, again not something I have used.
Please any insight. Thanks!
--
Mohit K. Gupta
B.Sc. CS, Minor Japanese
MCTS: SQL Server 20053rd party backup softwares has compression feature mostly. So, that may help
you about the storage issues. Check out trial versions of those softwares
and perform your tests. However, compressing databases will be available
with SQL Server 2008.
One tip regarding to taking backups to Tapes... Tapes should be connected to
your SQL Server server directly, you can not take backup to tape when the
tape is on another server.
Taking once full backup daily is not appropriate for most data critical
production servers. First you need to find out what's the tolarable losing
of data for that company. If they say "we do not have any tolerance to lose
any data" (which is quite normal) then you'll use Transaction Log backups
too. So keep the count of Transaction Log backups minimum, you'll need to
use Differential Backups as well. However, you know, it depends...
--
Ekrem Ã?nsoy
"Mohit K. Gupta" <mohitkgupta@.msn.com> wrote in message
news:9ED52060-6CAA-423C-B800-D0CECF8838CE@.microsoft.com...
> Hi Folks,
> I haven't worked at multiple SQL Shops so question for those who have;
> SQL Backups, which is the perfered way using SQL Server to do the backups
> or
> to use a 3rd backup agent like Backup Execs SQL Agent to do backups?
> Right now we use SQL Server to do daily backup to .BAK file; which later
> server ops write to tape. And continously we keep running into space
> issues; so it was suggested we use Backup Execs SQL Agent to do backups
> directly to tape. But I have never used Backup Exec so I couldn't really
> say which is better. I know SQL Server has ability to write directly to
> tapes, again not something I have used.
> Please any insight. Thanks!
> --
> Mohit K. Gupta
> B.Sc. CS, Minor Japanese
> MCTS: SQL Server 2005|||Thanks Ekrem.
In your opinion which one is better, using backup to disk? Or directly to
tape; considering I can get tape drive hooked directly to SQL Server.
--
Mohit K. Gupta
B.Sc. CS, Minor Japanese
MCTS: SQL Server 2005|||It depends on the scenarios. You can see some scenarios from the following
articles.
Some of them:
http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com/testdrive/article.php/3528326
http://www.storagesearch.com/engenio-art2.html
--
Ekrem Ã?nsoy
"Mohit K. Gupta" <mohitkgupta@.msn.com> wrote in message
news:79E1C65C-5732-4957-B18B-14B765A9D558@.microsoft.com...
> Thanks Ekrem.
> In your opinion which one is better, using backup to disk? Or directly to
> tape; considering I can get tape drive hooked directly to SQL Server.
> --
> Mohit K. Gupta
> B.Sc. CS, Minor Japanese
> MCTS: SQL Server 2005|||Thanks! Those are good links, now I can backup some of what I say to
management ;-). Thanks again.
--
Mohit K. Gupta
B.Sc. CS, Minor Japanese
MCTS: SQL Server 2005|||I'm glad they helped, good luck! =)
--
Ekrem Ã?nsoy
"Mohit K. Gupta" <mohitkgupta@.msn.com> wrote in message
news:59BFA06B-DCAE-4840-8CBF-2C36A946D056@.microsoft.com...
> Thanks! Those are good links, now I can backup some of what I say to
> management ;-). Thanks again.
> --
> Mohit K. Gupta
> B.Sc. CS, Minor Japanese
> MCTS: SQL Server 2005