The word “backup” refers to copying and archiving the data so that it may be used to restore in case of an event of data loss. In general, you should back up any work or data that can’t be replaced easily.
A database backup is a copy of data from the database, which can be used to reconstruct the data. A database backup is a process to protect the data from various disasters. Disasters cannot be completely prevented; the least we can do is to ensure we have everything that’s needed to get up and running as soon as we can.
An overview of the process of SQL Server backup-and-restore
2. What are factors to consider while planning for backup, restore, and recovery strategy?It’s a broad topic to discuss but, some of the high-level points to be considered while defining good backup strategy include the following topics:
Rate or frequency at which data changes Measure the volume of online transaction processing Measure the frequency of the schema or structural design changes Measure the frequency of database configuration change Understand data generation and data loading patterns Know the nature of the dataFor additional information: refer to the below link
Backup and Restore (or Recovery) strategies for SQL Server database
3. What are different stages of data life-cycle management?It’s important for any database administrator to understand the data lifecycle and the nature of the particular business, in order to have the ability to recover artifacts of business value from any sort of data disruptions.
Data capture or generation Data usage Data corruption Data corruption prevention Data protection Data archival Data purging Data retentionFor additional information: refer to the below link
Understanding the SQL Server Data Management Life Cycle
4. How to do plan or setup SQL Server Backup and Restore strategy in a multi-server environment using native tools?
In some cases, as part of company acquisition process, we may lead to revisit the review the existing the plans or we may also need to run through the steps to measure the current process. It is always advised to understand the importance and implication of business requirements. As each database may have different requirements based on the application it serves. The requirements may be based on:
How frequently does the application access the database? Is there a specific off-peak period when the backups can be scheduled? How frequently does the data get changed? If the changes are too frequent, you may want to schedule incremental backups in between full backups. Differential backups also reduce the restoration time. If only a small part of a large database changes frequently, partial and/or file backups can be used. Estimate the size of a full backup. Usually, the backup is smaller than the database itself, because it does not record the unused space in a database.PowerShell comes into the rescue for most of the DBAs. It is really that simple enough to design to gather backup information with few lines of code.
For additional information: refer to the below link
Planning a SQL Server Backup and Restore strategy in a multi-server environment using PowerShell and T-SQL
5. How does the database recovery model impact database backups?Database recovery model is the database configuration determines the type of database backup one could initiate on the database. It defines the state of the entries in the in transaction log files. Also, it provides the ways to restore or recover the database based on the configuration from varieties of failure.
SQL Server database recovery models:
SIMPLE FULL DifferentialFor additional information: refer to the below link.
Understanding SQL Server database recovery models
6. Explain the different types of database backup in SQL Server?The most common types of backups available in SQL Server:
Full Differential Transaction log Tail Log backupThere are other backup types available as well:
Copy-only backup File backups Partial backups.For additional information: refer to the below link
Understanding SQL Server Backup Types
7. How can I verify that backups are occurring on a daily basis?You could rely on database backup reports. In general, database administrators are very much concerned with getting the database backup report on a daily basis and also alerts as per the Service Level Agreement. It’s considered as a prime role of DBAs to rely on the backup report to understand and how the backups are running.
The reports can be generated in many ways
PowerShell scripts can be used to review the SQL Server error logs for backup failure events for the specific event id 18204,18210,3009,3017,3033, and 3021 Use T-SQL to query msdb.dbo.backupset for the backup information PowerShell SMO library to pull the related backup informationFor additional information: refer to the below link
SQL Server Database Backup and Restore reports
8. How can I verify that backups are occurring on a daily basis?The database snapshots are directly dependent on the source structure of the database. Therefore, snapshots can never be a substitute for backup-and-restore strategy. For instance, if an entire database is lost or corrupted, it means, the source files become inconsistent. If the source files are unavailable, snapshots cannot refer to them, and so, snapshot restoration would be impossible.
For additional information, refer to the below link
Understanding Database snapshots vs Database backups in SQL Server
9. What are the system tables that store backup and restore related information?The MSDB database in-house several system tables that stores all the information related to the backup-and-restore operation. You can query the following system tables for finding backup-and-restore information.
backupfile Store information about all the backup of the data file or log file backupfilegroup -This gives an information about all the backed up filegroups backupmediafamily Stores information about each media family backupmediaset Stores information about each backup media set