Stratesave 7.0 - SQL Server Backup

Stratesave 7.0 Organized Backup Program Help Files

SQL Server Backup

Stratesave supports backup of running SQL Server databases. Backups can be full, differential or incremental (transaction logs). The backups are performed through the SQL server backup programming interface or VSS, to assure accuracy of backed up data.

SQL Backup through SQL Server interface

For network backup of SQL Server, there are 2 possible modes: Using a remote process, or remote SQL Server function. For remote SQL Server function, the SQL Server must be configured to allow remote TCP/IP access. See Network Database Backup for details.

Stratesave backs up SQL server at the database level. Within macros, you can select SQL server databases for backup. The master database contains SQL server security and other customized settings. The backed up databases are stored in SQL server dump format, which is not compatible with the raw database files.

During a full backup, entire database is backed up. In a differential backup, changes are backed up, since last full backup. Optionally, differential backups can be configured to fully backup the SQL server. During incremental backup, only the update since last incremental backup or last full or differential backup will be backed up, keeping the backups small. Incremental backups are therefore for short-interval backups.

During restore, Stratesave automatically restores the full backup, differential and all incremental backups in correct order, to recover the database to most recent state.

For incremental backups (Transaction Log backups) to work, Recovery Model must be set to Full or Bulk-Logged Recovery. This option must be set for every database which is backed up with incremental backups.

You can restore the databases back to SQL server, if SQL server is running. Alternatively, you can restore the backed up SQL database(s) to file(s). The resulted files can then be used as input to the SQL server Enterprise Manager's restore. Stratesave allows restore to new SQL database. If a new target database name specified, a dialog will popup during Restore, where the new storage file names can be chosen and confirmed.

SQL Backup with VSS

SQL Server can be backed up by VSS (Volume Snapshot Service) through Service State\MSDEWriter or VSS\SqlServerWriter. These are always full backups, but they can be combined with standard SQL differential and incremental backups. Sql Server Writer is active only if the SQL Writer Service is started. If SQL Writer Service is running the SQL Server databases are no longer visible under MSDEWriter. To switch back to MSDEWriter usage, stop SQL Server Writer Service, set it to Manual Start and set Registry Value HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\VSS\Settings\MSDEVersionChecking to 0.

SQL Server database with VSS full backup and standard SQL differential/incremental backups must be restored in 2 runs. First restore the VSS database (under MSDE writer or SQL Server writer) with option Don't recover restored SQL databases=On. Then Restore the incremental/differential SQL databases (selectable under SQL Server), with option Don't recover restored SQL databases=Off.

VSS backups with SqlServerWriter can be restored under new database name under the same instance. The new database must not exist already. For renamed restore, a dialog will popup during Restore, where the new storage directory names can be chosen, but the database file names remain unchanged, even if they contain the name of the backed up database. This limitation is given by SQL Server VSS writer.

Stratesave Help Files