How To Backup An Rssql Database With A Backup And Maintenance Wizard

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1 Backup and Maintenance Wizard / Backup Reminder Overview The Backup Reminder and the Backup and Maintenance Wizard are progra ms that are included on your RS-SQL CD. The Backup and Maintenance Wizard program allows you to set up automatic backups of your RS-SQL database and transaction log. The Backup Reminder is a reporting tool that tells you when backups were run, where they are stored, and whether they have been transferred to tape. NOTE: We strongly recommend that you read and understand the Database Backup and Maintenance chapter. By understanding the information in the chapter, you will be in a much better position to protect your data and your business. No simple backup utility can substitute for the knowledge you will gain by understanding this material well. Installation Both the Backup and Maintenance Wizard and the Backup Reminder are installed from the RS-SQL CD along with the other programs. They can be selected as part of a "Custom" installation. They can also be installed at a later date using the Modify option in the Maintenance Mode. For more information on installing either of these programs, refer to the Installation chapter. NOTE: For simplicity, we recommend that you install the Backup and Maintenance Wizard on the RS-SQL server. The server has the prerequisite SQL DMO components already installed, and as such it is ready for the Backup and Maintenance Wizard. However, should your site desire to install the Backup and Maintenance Wizard on a workstation, install the SQL Server Client Utilities on that workstation first. The utilities are easily installed using the SQL Server installation CD. After the SQL Server Client Utilities have been installed, the workstation is ready for the Backup and Maintenance Wizard. Backup and Maintenance Wizard / Backup Reminder 1

2 Backup and Maintenance Wizard Setting up a Maintenance Plan The Backup and Maintenance Wizard creates and schedules jobs to perform t wo types of backup: Complete Database and Transaction Log. The complete database backup is a full copy of the database. This provides the foundation for database recovery in the event of any loss. It is often performed once a day for small to medium size record centers. Transaction log backups contain all transactions that have occurred since the last transaction log backup was performed. In SQL Server, a transaction log grows indefinitely until a transaction log backup is performed. Transaction log backups are much smaller than complete database backups, and can be performed much more often, with minimal impact on your system's performance. If transaction log backups are available after a loss, the database becomes recoverable to the time of the last transaction log backup. A typical restore scenario would start with a complete database restore, followed by restore of each transaction log backup made after the complete backup was made. You can see that this eliminates much of the need for re-entry of information. When the Backup and Maintenance Wizard creates a complete database backup, two SQL Server Maintenance Plans are generated: one for the RS-SQL database and one for the Master and MSDB system databases. The Master Database is created by SQL to hold all login and password information as well as lists of database files from the RS-SQL system. The Master Database is critical in the event that your server is physically destroyed. The MSDB Database lists all maintenance (backup) plans and backup history. These databases, while not what you look at every day, are critical in the event of disaster. Maintenance plans created by the O'Neil Backup and Maintenance Wizard can be maintained with the SQL Server Enterprise Manager Maintenance Wizard. Also, all jobs, job steps, and job schedules created as part of the plan can be maintained using Enterprise Manager. We are not recommending that you go outside of the O'Neil Wizard, but we have made every effort to ensure that you can. All backups are performed to disk, not tape. It is up to you to transfer backup files to tape for rotation. Database backup files older than 24 hours are removed after each successful database backup. Log backup files older than three days are removed after each successful log backup. It is very important that you place each backup file on tape before it is automatically removed with the successful completion of the next backup. Without backup to tape, your business is very vulnerable to serious data loss due to hard disk failure. Before you can examine or change any values in the Backup and Maintenance Wizard, you are required to enter the SA password. Type in the password, and click Login. When you open the Backup and Maintenance Wizard for the very first time, the following screen appears with defaults that we have chosen. These defaults are educated guesses at what might be convenient for the average record center. They can be changed to better meet the needs of your record center. If you make any changes, they are then displayed each time you open the Backup and Maintenance Wizard. 2 Backup and Maintenance Wizard / Backup Reminder

3 Start the RS-SQL Database Backups at: This is the time of day that your complete database backup will be performed. The default is 3:00 A.M. We chose a default time in the middle of the night, because it is unlikely that the server will be in use at that time. If you turn off your computers and server each night, you will need to schedule the backup at a time when they are still turned on. The backup for the Master and MSDB databases will automatically start running five minutes before the time you specify here. Perform Database Backups on these days: Select the days that you would like your complete database backups to run. If you are closed on Saturday and Sunday, the default may be appropriate for you. It schedules the backups to occur after each business day (at 3:00 the following morning). Perform the RS-SQL Log Backups every hours between the hours of The information in these fields determines how often Transaction Log backups are performed, and during what hours. When you determine how often to run Transaction Log backups, be aware of how much information is entered into your system every hour. If you are incredibly busy, you will want to perform these backups more often. If yours is a slower environment, every hour or two could be considered overkill. We recommend that you run Transaction Log backups during your business hours. Obviously, if your business is closed evenings, there is no need to continue to perform transaction backups on a database that is not changing. Place all Backup Files in this directory You may choose to place your backup files anywhere you like. The only requirement made by O'Neil's Wizard is that the directory you choose must already exist on the server. It will not create one for you, nor will it save files to your workstation's hard drive. The default directory is in the SQL Server installation directory, "backup" subdirectory. Regardless of whether you choose the default or your own directory, the Wizard creates subdirectories of "RSSQLDB," "master," and "msdb," and places Backup and Maintenance Wizard / Backup Reminder 3

4 the appropriate backups in each (Transaction Log backups go into RSSQLDB along with Complete Database backups). Backup Reminder The Backup Reminder is a single-screen reporting tool that displays information regarding your backup plan and its progress, the size of your database, and the amount of free space on your server s drives. At the top of the screen, the database that is being reported on is listed, along with the time that the information on the rest of the screen was captured. You will notice a number of buttons that can appear as green, yellow, and red. Like traffic lights, these colors also offer information. Green indicates that all is well, yellow gives warning, and red indicates that there is a problem. The information that the colored button refers to is reported next to it. Placing your mouse pointer over the colored button provides additional information. Complete Database Backups and Transaction Log Backups The first colored button tells you how long it has been since the last Complete Database backup occurred. If there is no backup, or if it has been a long time since one has taken place, the button is red and the appropriate message is displayed. The second colored button indicates the time that has passed since a Transaction Log backup occurred. It is also red if no Transaction Log backups exist or if none has been completed lately. The first table displays the most recent complete backup and all subsequent transaction log backups. The columns are as follows: Type: An icon representing Complete Database or Transaction Log. The Transaction Log icons are indented to represent their dependence on the previous Complete Database backup. 4 Backup and Maintenance Wizard / Backup Reminder

5 Start Date and Time: The date and time that the backup started. Duration: The time it took to perform the backup Mb Size: The size in megabytes of the backup Name: The name of the backup, if any. Most backups don't have names. Status: Shows whether the backup file has been archived to tape or not, or if it has been removed from its directory. Physical Device: The full path and name of the backup file. The name is assigned by the Backup Wizard, and describes itself. For example, the file name could be RSSQLDB_db_ bak. This is a complete backup of the database, completed in 1999, in the 9 th month, on the 23 rd day, at 3:00 in the morning. The following Transaction Log backup might be named RSSQLDB_tlog_ TRN Master and MSDB Database Backups The colored button tells you how long it has been since the last Master and MSDB Databases were backed up. The table below the buttons shows the same information for the Master and MSDB Database backups as the table above it showed for the Complete Database backups. Future Backups In the last section of the screen, you see a colored button that changes from green only if there appears to be a shortage of free space to perform the next complete RS- SQL backup. Below that is a table listing physical drives on the server, and their free space and database usage. Drive: The drive letter Mb Free: The number of megabytes of free space on the drive Db Allocated: The number of megabytes allocated to RS-SQL database files. This space is taken from the file system regardless of how much space the database actually requires. Db Used: The number of megabytes actually used within the allocated files. The sum of this value for all drives is nearly equal to the amount of space required to perform a full database backup. Also, using this number can help you determine how much database growth will occur before more file system is allocated. Log Allocated: The number of megabytes allocated to RS-SQL Transaction Log files. This space is taken from the file system regardless of how much space the log actually requires. Log Used: The percentage of allocated log space that is actually being used by the active transaction log. Since SQL Server t reats the Transaction Logs as a single entity, no distinction can be made about the number of megabytes actually used on a per drive basis. Therefore, regardless of the number of physical files used by the Transaction Logs on any number of drives, the percent will remain the same. Advanced Information Additional information is available to you on the Advanced Information screen. To access this window, click the yellow notepad icon in the upper left corner of the screen and then select Advanced Information. Backup and Maintenance Wizard / Backup Reminder 5

6 NOTE: Collecting this information can be time consuming, especially on larger databases. Generally, you will not need to examine this information unless instructed to do so by O Neil Support. This window displays the RS-SQL database fragmentation percentage, the date that optimizer statistics were last compiled, and the percentage of data sampled when compiling those statistics. The fragmentation level should be low, and a value of over 10% or 20% might indicate that the indexes need to be rebuilt. A h ighly fragmented database often results in slower queries, and slower overall database performance in multi-user settings. The date that optimizer statistics were last updated and the percentage of data sampled, both refer to Query Optimizer Statistics. The SQL Server query optimizer needs information about the distribution of data values within each index so that it can make the correct decisions about how best to optimize a query. If the statistics are very old, or if the amount of data sampled was very small, the query optimizer might not be able to make accurate decisions, resulting in less than optimal performance. 6 Backup and Maintenance Wizard / Backup Reminder