Hi Friends,
I am going to start a series on SQL Server Backups from past to present. So in my first blog of this series, I want to put some light on the introduction and Importance of backups.
During our study or even in most blogs, we generally read a statement “Data is one of the most important assets for an organization.” This statement itself explains the importance of data. To protect this important asset from any type of loss, we use ‘Backup’.
Meaning of Backup as per dictionary:
Something, that can be called on if necessary, a reserve.
Meaning of Backup as per SQL Server Books Online:
A copy of SQL Server data that can be used to restore and recover the data after a failure. A backup of SQL Server data is created at the level of a database or one or more of its files or filegroups. Table-level backups cannot be created. In addition to data backups, the full recovery model requires creating backups of the transaction log.
For a Database Administrator, Backup is the primary responsibility because you are the administrator for most important asset of an organization. There are various types of backup in SQL Server like full, differential, log backup etc. Database Administrator also prepares a good backup strategy by using them to minimize the data loss as much as possible as per business requirement or Service Level Agreement (SLA).
Implementing only a good backup strategy is not sufficient. There may be a situation where you have the backup but that may be corrupted due to any reason. So testing of backup correctness is also another responsibility of Database Administrator. Generally we can check the correctness of backups by restoring them on test servers regularly. This testing is really important to say “We are good from backup side.”
There are many third party tools available in the market which also provides functionality of backups. There are various types of option also available to use while using backup like INIT, CHECKSUM, BLOCKSIZE, BUFFERCOUNT etc. I’ll try to cover as much as possible.
HAPPY LEARNING!
Regards:
Prince Kumar Rastogi
