Popular Post matt40k Posted October 21, 2009 Popular Post Posted October 21, 2009 (edited) Hi All, As you are all hopefully aware, Capita will be releasing SIMS Autumn release on the 9th November, with any lucky. Included in this is support for MSSQL 2008. There are a number of changes that will affect your setups, such as transaction log being replaced with Simple recovery model, so no more shrinking the log file! However on a more negative point you will lose tidy backups from System Manager and more importantly, compression from the backups. (See Resource: 16028) I know this may sound bad, however, I think is a positive step. Have you ever had a problem in SIMS and you've had the head or such breathing down your neck to fix it, so you log a call with Capita or your Local Authority only to have them say, it's a known bug and there is a patch. So you decide to do it during the day, only to have dbupgrade take what seems like a lifetime to run a ruddy backup, and it appears to have crashed, at this stage you start to ask yourself, do I quit and use the /nobackup option? Well if you've ever looked into this, Capita did a while ago create a patch that removes compression, and OMG, it does help, I've seen backups take seconds (if the database is loaded in RAM and you have fast discs). So this is good right? We'll how many of you routinely check you MSSQL\backup folder? Now you need start to look at compression as well. Lovely. Well I didn't like the idea of doing this, so I've created a program that will do this for you. I've uploaded it onto SupportNet, ID 688, failing that, it's attached on here too. Overview. It's entirely written in C#, hopefully well. It contains a built-in ZIP library - SharpZip, which in my opinion appears to be quicker then the Microsoft ZIP library. It only requires .NET Framework 2.0 - or it should . It's a small little app, 134KB in total, digitally signed to ensure it's unmodified. It will only compress uncompressed MSSQL backups (.bak) and will only delete compressed files (.zip) and MSSQL backups (.bak). It deletes before it compresses, so you don't waste time compressing only to delete. You can set the maximum age of the backup and it will delete them older then the date specified, it uses the date created. Compression is optional, and if you do choice to, it will set the creation date to the same as the MSSQL backup (.bak). Usage Download the program, save it to the local disc on the (SIMS) MSSQL server, I generally say create a batch file, but you can do whatever, run from command line… Tidybackups.exe /PATH:[PATH TO YOUR MSSQL\BACKUP] /DAYS:[NO OF DAYS] [/ARCHIVE] For example: Tidybackups.exe /PATH:"C:\program files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Backup" /DAYS:30 /ARCHIVE This will delete any compressed files (.zip) and MSSQL backups (.bak) over 30 days old, any remaining MSSQL backups will be compressed, and the uncompressed version deleted. If you want to do logging, you can ofcourse redirect the output to a file, so add >>log.txt This will write any files that are compressed and\or deleted. Once you have create a batch file, I would then schedule it to run, daily, just to keep on top of things. Hopefully you'll find this useful, just remember it's not just limited to SIMS! EDIT: Now on sourceforge at: tidybackups | Get tidybackups at SourceForge.net Matttidybackups.zip Edited May 11, 2010 by ZeroHour 12
Sivadam Posted October 21, 2009 Posted October 21, 2009 This sounds good Matt. 'Cos I ain't technically minded (well not to any great degree) I'll alert my colleague, who is, so that he can look into this for us. I would have thought that Capita would have been provided something similar though.
zag Posted October 22, 2009 Posted October 22, 2009 However on a more negative point you will lose tidy backups from System Manager and more importantly, compression from the backups. Eugh
matt40k Posted October 22, 2009 Author Posted October 22, 2009 Tidy backups still needed you to do it manually and compression was rubbish. They used Dynazip, and the company that made it went under, it couldn't support anything over 4gb and made the whole backup process waaay longer that it needed to be.
DMcCoy Posted October 22, 2009 Posted October 22, 2009 Ah yes, my archives are corrupt if I let system manager do it. I just have an export running from MSSQL instead. That file then goes on to tape each day. Just one file that gets overwritten, I do make a copy when running patches or dangerous operations though. What I'd really like to see is working auditing.
Sivadam Posted October 22, 2009 Posted October 22, 2009 SM Backups and Tidying Backups works ok for me. And YES they are viable backups. They regularly get sent down to Capita for UAT purposes and I fully working for me when I get there!
matt40k Posted October 22, 2009 Author Posted October 22, 2009 @Sivadam Re-read my first post, Tidy backups is going in Autumn as part of SQL 2008, as per Jon Wood's presentation at the SIMS Update Semiar, you can get the sides from SupportNet -16028. The issue DMcCoy is refering to is an known bug with large database files or the issue with the CRC. Both issues with Dynazip, which Capita will iron out by removing it.
Rawns Posted November 6, 2009 Posted November 6, 2009 Hi Matt40k, First off, this looks like it will be very useful! However, while testing, I have come across an issue. It seems that compressing the file does not function correctly. A zip file of the same name as the *.bak file is created, but the *.bak file is not added to the zip file before it is deleted. It leaves us with no *.bak file and a zip file 1k in size. When ran from a command line, the script completes in second, not near long enough to compress a file. Example from my test: C:\Backup>tidybackups.exe /PATH:"C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Backup" /DAYS:7 /ARCHIVE Deleted - C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Backup\ccsfms_20091022_140740.bak Deleted - C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Backup\ccsfms_20091022_143508.bak Deleted - C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Backup\master_20091022_140735.bak Deleted - C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Backup\master_20091022_141333.bak Deleted - C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Backup\master_20091022_143501.bak Deleted - C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Backup\master_20091022_144008.bak Deleted - C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Backup\msdb_20091022_140738.bak Deleted - C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Backup\msdb_20091022_141334.bak Deleted - C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Backup\msdb_20091022_143503.bak Deleted - C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Backup\msdb_20091022_144010.bak Deleted - C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Backup\sims_cp361_mnw_20091016_093113.zip Compressed - C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Backup\ccsfms_20091106_143508.bak Deleted - C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Backup\ccsfms_20091106_143508.bak Any advice you could offer to get this working would be appreciated as I would really like to use this!
Stuart_C Posted November 6, 2009 Posted November 6, 2009 Never had a proble with compression or the length of time it took to create them. I am not happy backup compression has gone
matt40k Posted November 7, 2009 Author Posted November 7, 2009 Never had a proble with compression or the length of time it took to create them. I am not happy backup compression has gone Glad it's gone, backups now take seconds not hours. Compression can be done later when the system is not use. @Rawns So you have a file called ccsfms_20091106_143508.bak and a file called ccsfms_20091106_143508.zip? Mmm... not actually thought of this scenario as it shouldn't happen automatically, I assume someone has uncompressed the file from the zip. I'll have a think how I can deal with this and make new release. Thanks for the feedback.
matt40k Posted November 8, 2009 Author Posted November 8, 2009 Updated version Output date\time (good if your logging) If .bak exists and a same named .zip exists, it'll search inside the zip for the same file, if it has the .bak already, it'll just delete the .bak. Otherwise it'll .zip it. (For example, you extract the .bak file and forget to clean up afterwards) I've added the source code as well tidybackups_source.ziptidybackups.zip 1
creese Posted November 9, 2009 Posted November 9, 2009 Can't open the zips, both files are corrupt. Same here.
Rawns Posted November 9, 2009 Posted November 9, 2009 @Rawns So you have a file called ccsfms_20091106_143508.bak and a file called ccsfms_20091106_143508.zip? Mmm... not actually thought of this scenario as it shouldn't happen automatically, I assume someone has uncompressed the file from the zip. I'll have a think how I can deal with this and make new release. Thanks for the feedback. Not quite.... There is a file called ccsfms_20091106_143508.bak and when I run your script, a file called ccsfms_20091106_143508.zip is created, and straight after its creation, the ccsfms_20091106_143508.bak file is deleted without being added to the zip file. I assume you script makes the zip file and is ment to add the bak filew to it, then delete the bak file once completed? I'll download your updated version and give it another go.
Rawns Posted November 9, 2009 Posted November 9, 2009 Updated version Output date\time (good if your logging) If .bak exists and a same named .zip exists, it'll search inside the zip for the same file, if it has the .bak already, it'll just delete the .bak. Otherwise it'll .zip it. (For example, you extract the .bak file and forget to clean up afterwards) I've added the source code as well Thanks for this! Just to let you know, no problems opening it here in WinRAR.
creese Posted November 9, 2009 Posted November 9, 2009 Tried WinRAR, same problem. I'll try from home later.
matt40k Posted November 9, 2009 Author Posted November 9, 2009 Lets try it as a 7z.tidybackups.7ztidybackups_source.7z 2
Rawns Posted November 9, 2009 Posted November 9, 2009 Not quite.... There is a file called ccsfms_20091106_143508.bak and when I run your script, a file called ccsfms_20091106_143508.zip is created, and straight after its creation, the ccsfms_20091106_143508.bak file is deleted without being added to the zip file. I assume you script makes the zip file and is ment to add the bak filew to it, then delete the bak file once completed? I'll download your updated version and give it another go. Hay Matt40k. Just to let you know this seems to be working perfectly now! The date/time feature is a nice little addition and this will defiantly help towards the headaches caused by low disk space because of uncompressed backups! Thanks again.
Heebeejeebee Posted November 9, 2009 Posted November 9, 2009 Glad it's gone, backups now take seconds not hours. Compression can be done later when the system is not use. I'm running two SIMS servers at the moment since I'm just about to roll out the new one system wide but my backups on the old server take over 25 mins to complete and on the new server they take 17 seconds. HBJB
Grommit Posted November 16, 2009 Posted November 16, 2009 Lets try it as a 7z. Why are there 2 files to download and Can this run in scheduled events ?
Edu-IT Posted November 16, 2009 Posted November 16, 2009 One is the source, the other is the program?
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