netbackup for sql server database

[ciacia]

Hi All,

Need advise here.

I have the below backup strategy in placed

1. Daily Full DB Backup Via netbackup to Tape 8pm --> let's say this tape is corrupted.
2. 3 Hourly transaction Log backup via netbackup to Tape (12am,6am,12pm,6pm)
3. Daily Full DB backup to disk (via SQL maintenance Plan).

For netbackup, is there any option for (2) to work with the full backup taken by (3) to perform point in time recovery?
Technically I can restore the database (backup taken in 3)  -- restore with no recovery option (as i wish to apply transaction logs to it for point in time recovery).

Is there any option for netbackup 2to restore only the transaction logs to facilite my point in time recovery?

thanks

[ciacia]

Yes. You can tell Netbackup to restore just translaction logs to an unrecovered DB, even if the full wasn't placed there by Netbackup.

--> Any idea will backup exec 2012 able to do this as well? Just to confirm.

3. Daily Full DB backup to disk (via SQL maintenance Plan).

If you are already using Netbackup to protect your SQL servers, I would not recommend using another backup product/tool/procedure to backup the same DBs, unless you can guarantee that this other method is only doing a "copy" backup. If it doesn't, then it might "steal" some of the transaction logs from Netbackup's next scheduled backup, breaking the chain and invalidating Netbackup's backup images. MS SQL also keeps some kind of backup counter internally, so there is also the possibility that the other method will mess up the counter that should only be altered by Netbackup jobs.

--> I'm only scheduling daily full backup via maintenance plan. From SQL Server point of view, even if it's not a copy only backup, it will not break the transaction log chain (steal). It will only affect differential backup as differential backup will take the latest full backup as the base. But for my case here, i'm not using any diff backup either via netbackup or sql server backup. So based on ur expertise, will there still be problem? Can elaborate more on this?

More information on:

http://sqlinthewild.co.za/index.php/2011/03/08/full-backups-the-log-chain-and-the-copy_only-option/

 thanks

[RLeon · Accepted solution]

Is there any option for netbackup 2to restore only the transaction logs to facilite my point in time recovery?

Yes. You can tell Netbackup to restore just translaction logs to an unrecovered DB, even if the full wasn't placed there by Netbackup.

Also, this procedure is very similar to backing up and restoring tail-logs. More info here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms179314

And NetBackup fully supports it.
The below image is extracted from the Netbackup SQL Admin Guide:
http://www.symantec.com/connect/sites/default/files/nbu%20sql%20tail%20log.jpg

3. Daily Full DB backup to disk (via SQL maintenance Plan).

If you are already using Netbackup to protect your SQL servers, I would not recommend using another backup product/tool/procedure to backup the same DBs, unless you can guarantee that this other method is only doing a "copy" backup. If it doesn't, then it might "steal" some of the transaction logs from Netbackup's next scheduled backup, breaking the chain and invalidating Netbackup's backup images. MS SQL also keeps some kind of backup counter internally, so there is also the possibility that the other method will mess up the counter that should only be altered by Netbackup jobs.