Forum Discussion

Shaun_Taylor's avatar
Shaun_Taylor
Level 5
11 years ago

SQL Agent Questions

Hi all,

We have recently started testing the NBU SQL DB agent with some very encouraging results so far. However, I still have a couple of questions that I was hoping some of you might be able to answer as I haven't been able to find a definitive answer elsewhere:

 

  • Is it possible to redirect a SQL DB restore? Does the restore have to be to the original database, or can it be restored to an alternate database / location?

 

  • What happens to a scheduled transaction log backup if it is initiated while a full database backup is still running? I'm guessing it is best practice to set up the start windows so that this is unlikely to happen, but if a full backup takes longer than expected I'm curious to know if NetBackup will queue the transaction log job or if this could potentially cause some issues on the SQL side of things. I have tried to test this myself, but the performance has been so good while the backup environment is quiet that I've struggled to get the jobs to clash by manually initiating them!
7.5
Agents
Backing Up
Backup and Recovery
Best Practice
Configuring
NetBackup
Restore
Tip-How to
Windows Server (2003-2008)
  • Will_Restore's avatar
    Will_Restore
    11 years ago

    first one is easy: see the Symantec NetBackup™ for Microsoft SQL Server Administrator's Guide for details

    The database move redirects the restore of a SQL Server database to a different
    location. The new location can be a different instance on the same host, a different
    host, or a different file path. The move operation also lets you restore the database
    under a different name than the original one.

    http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=DOC5173

     

    second one is better asked on Microsoft forum

     

  • lu's avatar
    lu
    11 years ago

    It's better to avoid a full+log backups situation, bad things can happen :-)

    https://serverfault.com/questions/13099/sql-transaction-log-backups-conflicting-with-full-backups

6 Replies

Sort By
  • Will_Restore's avatar
    Will_Restore
    Level 6
    11 years ago

    first one is easy: see the Symantec NetBackup™ for Microsoft SQL Server Administrator's Guide for details

    The database move redirects the restore of a SQL Server database to a different
    location. The new location can be a different instance on the same host, a different
    host, or a different file path. The move operation also lets you restore the database
    under a different name than the original one.

    http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=DOC5173

     

    second one is better asked on Microsoft forum

     

  • lu's avatar
    lu
    Level 6
    11 years ago

    It's better to avoid a full+log backups situation, bad things can happen :-)

    https://serverfault.com/questions/13099/sql-transaction-log-backups-conflicting-with-full-backups

  • Shaun_Taylor's avatar
    Shaun_Taylor
    Level 5
    11 years ago

    Thanks for the info, much appreciated.

    Marianne, your suggestion of having both scripts in one policy would be ideal, but would that mean I couldn't do nightly full backups and hourly transaction logs due to the schedule configuration?

  • Marianne's avatar
    Marianne
    Level 6
    11 years ago

    You can have 2 policies - One for nightly backups as per my suggestion above with night-time backup window.
    One for daily log backups that only includes log backup script with day-time backup window.

    Or else only database backup script in night-time window, and another log backup policy that will only have open window during day time. You should carefully monitor database backup to know more or less when database backups end, and then only open log backup window when you know that database backups are done.

    Most of our customers have day-time schedules for log backups with a Frequency of 1 hour.