SQL 2012 Backup

[Marc_Lemar]

Hi Everyone,

 

I have been looking at the site for a while now and have just got a position as the IT Manager at a school so decided to register,

I am sorry if this is in the wrong area but after having a look at the way everything is set up at the school I am a little concerned

about the sql server backup.

 

The server is currently running 2008 R2 with BE 2010 R3, there is no SQL client installed for BE but the only file that is being skipped

according to the logs is a USB driver, as I want to make sure the SQL databases are being backed up is there anyway of scheduling a script

so that it can stop the SQL service, backup the databases to another location on the server then restart the services.

 

I do appreciate that you can log into SQL 2012 and backup the databases manually but this is not really a viable solution and I would like to

script it so that I can then forget about it.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated thanks.

[synaesthesia]

Always worth being proactive with backups. Grab something liek BackupAssist with the SQL addon - educational pricing for that is very cheap.

[MrWu]

Might be worth using scheduled maintenance plan for SQL (we did this on some of our SQL servers) the Resulting .bak file could then be backed up with Backup Exec.

 

Buys you some time to test an alternative solution till then. (If school has EES agreement, DPM is quite reasonable.

 

SQL 2012 Scheduling Auto Backup - CodeProject

Edited September 14, 2013 by MrWu

[synaesthesia]

DPM is a pain in the arse though if, unlike Microsoft, you live in the modern era and don't use tape. Any benefit of it being included with your EES agreement is soon wiped out if you want to add in anything like filestreamer.

BA was something like 150 quid, so very good value for money.

[Marc_Lemar]

Might be worth using scheduled maintenance plan for SQL (we did this on some of our SQL servers) the Resulting .bak file could then be backed up with Backup Exec.

 

Buys you some time to test an alternative solution till then. (If school has EES agreement, DPM is quite reasonable.

 

SQL 2012 Scheduling Auto Backup - CodeProject

 

We dont have an EES at the moment but it is something I am looking into, had 2 quotes in the last 2 days and there coming out well within budget so will be looking at taking that out next week.

 

I am not that familiar with DPM is it straight forward to use and will it work with our current backup to RDX cartridge solution ??? I did enquire yesterday about the IDR add-on for BE 2010 but was told it was no longer available and to upgrade to BE 2012 as its allready included, we do have a copy of BE 2012 that came with our last server from Dell but its not that straight forward to use is backup assist any better ???

Edited September 14, 2013 by Marc_Lemar

[MrWu]

Hi

 

DPM is very easy to setup, you can run it in a cheap HP microserver with load of SATA disk for example.

 

It will backup Exchange, SQL as well as file shares and even VMs, you can take snapshots as regular as 15 minutes

 

You can chain DPM servers together so one backs up the other, good for putting a DPM in another building

 

Disadvantage:

 

Tape back up is a bit if a pain, in this case BE is better in a sense recovery is easier, although DPM is designed towards disk based backup and recovery

 

It does occasionally drop DPM agents but I had this few and far between

 

It could be that using a scheduled maintenance plan and using BE to backup the .bak file is more than adequate for now, worth looking at BA as well as synaestheia mentioned

Edited September 14, 2013 by MrWu

[Marc_Lemar]

Thats great thanks everyone gives me something to look at on Monday when I get back to school, currently BE 2010 says its only skipping one file and thats

a sub driver but if thats the case why do they sell the additional SQL add-on ???

 

The plan is to get the .bak files to backup to a shared drive on another server so at least 2 servers back up the data.

[Edu-IT]

The SQL addon allows you to verify databases, perforn restores etc all though BE. It's not that badly priced either from what I remember. I'd be cautious about whether your current setup is backing up SQL properly. In the selection list do you see SQL databases listed?

[Marc_Lemar]

Yes they are listed there but that is why I had my doubts and why I want to create a script to make the .bak files at least then if it all fails I have the .bak files to restore, I am currently looking as BE 2012 as it comes with its own form of Intelligent Disaster Recovery.

 

A lot of people on here have mentioned Backup Assist but I have not seen it and dont know a great deal about it either, If I can get IDR working I have a spare server and can test the restore process.