Backing Up to disk in SQL Server 2005 - New Implementation

[Former Member]

Hi There,

My company are implementing SAP with SQL Server 2005. I have the responsibility of creating the backup strategy. We will not be using Tape Media to back up - all our backups are carried out to DISK (SAN).

Please can anyone state the recommended way to do this i.e. through the SAP DBA Calendar or through SQL Studio Manager.

My experience is with SQL and i have been trying for the last few weeks to implement a strategy through the SAP DBA calendar. However i am finding it very difficult to administer this way because there are limited options on the DBA calender i.e to overwrite files, delete old files, date name files etc. From what i have seen the DBA calendar would only be successful usind backup tape media.

Please can anyone recommend anything or give experience of how they have dealt with this situation before and weather you implemented through SAP DBA Calender or the Studio.

Many Thanks

Jamie Blake

DBA

[Former Member]

Hi Jamie,

This thread may also be interesting -

[Former Member]

You're on the right track -- you can use the SSMS instead of DB13.

Here's some good notes (oldies but goodies and still relevant)

Note 44449 - Backup strategies with the SQL server

Note 37152 - SQL Server Backup to a dump file

[Former Member]

Hi There,

I have read the articles - but they do not cover a strategy or a valid reason for using SQL Server over SAP DBA Calendar when backing up to disk.

It would be good if anyone else out there only backs up to disk with SQL and to let me know how they manage it.

Many thanks for your time with this....

Regards

Jamie

[Former Member]

HI,

configure backup devices on MS SQL Server management Studio,

logon to SQL server management Studio,

under object explorer navigate through server object -> backup devices

create new backup device -- destination file type.

when you schedule backup using DB13 it's take the backup on this location ( disk )

regards,

kaushal

[Former Member]

This is what i am testing at the minute. The only problem is we are limited to space on our backup drive and therefore doing a SAN copy each night to move the data although we want to keep a local copy. DBA calendar has no option to overwrite the previouse file each night or to actually delete an older file etc. This is what causes us a problem.

Obviously within SQL studio backups are more controlable at file level, but then you would loose the ability to manage backups centrally through DBA Calendar?

Many thanks

Jamie

[Former Member]

Hi,

yes you are right,

DBA calendar has no option to overwrite the previouse file each night or to actually delete an older file

result in problem for HDD space.

regards,

kaushal

[Former Member]

For my previous implementation for backup MSSQL to disk (including backup of transaction log, as the project using log shipping for DR solution), and keep 3 copies on disk, and backup to tape daily.

For zero administation, I wrote a batch script to delete files on disc. You should note that the backup file from MSSQL has a patten: DBName_yyyymmddhhmm.bak. So I wrote a script to calculate 3 days before today and delete them. After that I schduled to run the batch file daily.

If your harddisk space is limit, you can reduce number of copies on disk.