BakBone Blog

News & Views from BakBone® Software

Selecting the SQL Server Backup Type to use with NetVault: Backup – Part 1

Posted by Mike Daniels on February 3, 2010

Mike Daniels, Product Manager

Before deploying the NetVault: Backup APM for SQL Server, you must first define your SQL Server backup strategy. The purpose of creating a SQL Server backup strategy is to be able to recover a database that has been damaged or become corrupted. When creating a backup strategy, you define the type and frequency of backups to meet the data protection requirements of the database or application.

First, it is important to understand the VDI-based backup types that can be performed with SQL Server in order to give you an idea of what each one does. The NetVault: Backup APM for SQL Server offers several types of backups including

  • Full database
  • Differential database
  • Copy-only
  • Incremental transaction log
  • Tail-log
  • Full file and filegroup
  • Differential file and filegroup
  • Partial database
  • Differential partial database

With full database backups, you are backing up the entire database. This type of backup also includes part of the transaction log so that the full database backup can be completely recovered. A full database backup represents the database at the time that the backup was completed. These backups are typically easy to use because they contain all the data in the database. For smaller databases that can be backed up quickly, this is the recommended method for backups due to the simplicity of the recovery process. As databases become larger and the full database backups take longer, you probably want to consider supplementing full database backups with differential database backups.

Differential database backups only record the data that has changed since the last full database backup. These backups are smaller and faster than a full database backup, which saves time but does start to increase the complexity of the backup scheme. For large databases, it is Microsoft’s best practice to follow full database backups with a series of differential database backups. Since each differential will get larger than the previous, it is also recommended that you schedule a new full database backup on an appropriate schedule.      There are special situations where you might want to have a database or a backup of the database, but do not want to impact the regular backup rotation or scheme. A typical SQL Server backup will change the database by updating the differential bitmap. This change affects how future backups and restores are done. By using copy-only backup, you can create a backup that is independent of the regular SQL Server backup sequence. This means that the differential bitmaps are not changed and your regular backup sequence will not be affected. Typically these backups are ideal for circumstances where you require the database, but do not want to affect you production system, such as creating a test environment, or for standby databases.

Transaction logs contain the data for all of the actual transaction that have occurred on the database. In SQL Server, taking routine transaction log backups are essential to be able to fully recover the data. With transaction log backups, you have the ability to recover a database to a specific point in time or to the point of a database failure. With incremental transaction log backups, you capture all of the transaction logs including transaction logs that have been generated since the last full database/file or filegroup, differential database/file or filegroup, or incremental transaction kog backup. These backups are also the means by with the SQL Server logs are typically truncated in order to reduce the amount of space required by the SQL Server logs.

Tail-log backups are backups that capture the logs that have not been backed up yet. These are typically the last backup restored in a SQL Server recovery sequence because it completes the log chain. With SQL Server 2005 and 2008, it is required that you run a tail-log backup prior to restoring any database that is currently attached to the SQL Server Instance. Because of this, the tail-log backup is typically the first step in any recovery process.

While restores are the primary consideration when creating a backup strategy, you have to understand what the different types of backups are actually doing so that you can make a conscious and informed decision.

In my next Blog we will continue the discussion on different types of SQL Server backups and their purpose.

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Encrypting all Backups vs. Job-Level Encryption with NetVault: Backup

Posted by Dawn renee Campbell on January 27, 2010

Dawn renee Campbell

  

You have selected the encryption algorithm you are going to use with the NetVault: Backup (NVBU) Encryption Plugin and have decided whether to encrypt your primary or secondary backups, but now you are not sure if you should encrypt all of your backups or use NVBU 8.5’s new job-level encryption feature.  

Prior to NVBU 8.5, your only option was to encrypt all the backups for the NVBU Server or a Heterogeneous Client where the NVBU Encryption Plugin is installed, but NVBU 8.5 gives you the ability to only enable encryption for specific jobs.  Understanding the benefits of both options will help you choose the best strategy for your environment.  

Encrypt all Backups  

The NVBU Server or Heterogeneous Client should only be configured to encrypt all its backups when  

  • All the NVBU Plugins installed on the NVBU Server or Heterogeneous Client are compatible with the Encryption Plugin
  • All backups from the NVBU Server or Heterogeneous Client require encryption
  • Primary and secondary backups require encryption
  • Backups will be targeted to NetVault: SmartDisk (NVSD) devices for deduplication

For a list of NVBU Plugins that are not compatible with the Encryption Plugin, refer to the NetVault: Backup Encryption Plugin Release Notes.  

Job-Level Encryption  

Job-level encryption for primary backups is beneficial when  

  • Not all the NVBU Plugins installed on the NVBU Server or Heterogeneous Client are compatible with the NVBU Encryption Plugin
  • Not all backups from the same NVBU Server or Heterogeneous Client require encryption
  • Primary backups do not require encryption while secondary backups for offsite protection do require encryption
  • Primary backups are targeted to NVSD devices for deduplication

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Storage Technology Predictions for 2010 – What’s to Come

Posted by BakBone on January 21, 2010

Andrew Martin, VP of APAC

For much of 2009, deduplication was the “buzz” technology in storage. We started seeing major adoption of deduplication across different business sectors and companies of varying sizes, from large enterprises down to SMEs, adopt the technology. In addition, we saw a move from deduplication specialist companies dominating the space to traditional storage and software companies (BakBone included) coming to market with their own deduplication offerings. Finally, we saw the soap-opera-like battle of two industry giants slugging it out to take control as the leading deduplication specialist, Data Domain.

So what’s going to be the storage buzz technology of 2010?

Unfortunately, I don’t see anything on the horizon about to explode into every IT department. I stand to be proved wrong, but I do not see a technology taking us by storm in 2010 in the way deduplication did last year.

Cloud storage is growing with many vendors aiming to get on the bandwagon, form alliances and drive IT departments toward their vision of how cloud should be adopted. However, I have spoken to many people about cloud storage: IT directors, government departments, analysts, journalists and systems integrators, and whilst cloud is becoming increasingly relevant, it seems that adoption of cloud based will still be steady with corporate companies, particularly experimenting with different providers to find out what, if anything, works for them.

Whilst cloud is going to continue to grow, my educated guess is that it won’t be the must-have storage technology of 2010.

I have seen one technology making a comeback – archiving. However, I don’t think we can refer to archiving as  something new; in fact, it is one of the oldest storage technologies around with HSM-type products being popular in the height of the mainframe days.

However, across Asia and beyond, many companies are expressing a renewed interest in spending money on archive and HSM-type products. This is not only for e-mail but also for applications like SharePoint and even for file-system data. In addition, we are seeing numerous startup companies come to market with new archive products. It is interesting to see startups cropping up in such an old arm of storage technology. However, these new companies are working on the next generation of archive technology. Products that understand and take advantage of server and storage virtualisation, that can classify data in many different ways and even build a repository of archived data that can be used for analysis by other applications. BakBone recently released NetVault: Archive in Europe (a “next-generation archive product”), and it has been fascinating to see the level of demand for us to launch this product in Asia.

For me, I wonder what the natural progression from archiving might be. I have wondered if there ever might be demand for a vendor to build a platform that can intelligently delete data; not secure deletion, there are many light utilities available that securely delete data. My vision is of a technology that can identify data based on strong preset criteria that can be permanently deleted without impacting compliance or inadvertently removing required/useful data.

We are always reluctant to simply delete data; however we know two things for a fact:

1 – The rate of data growth causes significant data management problems.

2 – We store and protect large volumes of data that we do not need and will never use again.

Deleting data sends a chill down the spine of most IT administrators and is something we just don’t do. The risk of deleting something critical outweighs the potential benefit of getting rid of the waste.

However, if intelligent file systems ever become a reality, then maybe a product that allows data to automatically be “thrown” into the waste bin could be in our future.

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Podcast – City of Safford Goes on the Record about FASTRecover

Posted by Amber Winans on January 19, 2010

Derek Kruger, IT Supervisor, City of Safford

9 min 39 sec

In this podcast, BakBone customer Derek Kruger discusses the challenges he faced with his old backup solution and why he switched to NetVault: FASTRecover. He shares with us how FASTRecover helps keep the city’s financial databases up and running, how it has eliminated backup windows and how the product works quietly behind the scenes to keep Exchange and SQL data available for the employees and citizens of Safford.  “No one cares if you back anything up, all they care is if you can get it back to them when they ask for it,” Derek says.

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Video – Whiteboard Session with Amit Malhotra – Recovering Consistent Data

Posted by Amber Winans on January 19, 2010

In the first installment of the BakBone Whiteboard Sessions, Amit Malhotra discusses application-aware data recoveries and how to successfully recover consistent data.

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