DatVat Online Business Backup Service

sql server backup

Fri, 25 May 2012 11:24:15 +0000

Backup, Restore, and Verify you SQL Server Backup

Backup, restore, and verify: the three main features of any good backup strategy, made easier with Datvat SQL Server Backup. Datvat SQL Backup enables you to schedule backup jobs, taking faster, smaller, and more secure SQL Server database backups. It can also test backup files when they are created. Reminders alert you to set up regular backups using the Schedule wizard.

Backups

Microsoft defines, SQL Server backup as: A copy of data that is used to restore and recover data after a system failure SQL Backups can be created a number of ways and can incorporate all or some of the data, as well as some part of the transaction log. While this article is focused on 2005 syntax, most of the concepts are applicable to 2000. This is a huge topic. At best, I’m going to scratch the surface and give you enough information so you won’t start crying again. After reading this, you should be able to set up a reasonable set of backups for your system.

Recovery Models

In order to begin working on your sql server backups, the business needs define a database recovery model. In essence, a recovery model defines what you’re going to do with the transaction log data. There are three recovery models: Full, Simple and Bulk Logged. These are pretty easy to define:

Simple – in simple recovery mode, the transaction log is not backed up so you can only recover to the most recent full or differential backup.
Full – in full recovery mode you backup the database and the transaction log so that you can recover the database to any point in time.
Bulk Logged – in bulk logged mode, most transactions are stored in the transaction log, but some bulk operations such as bulk loads or index creation are not logged.

The two most commonly used modes are Simple and Full. Don’t necessarily assume that, of course, you always need to use Full recovery sql server backup to protect your data. It is a business decision. The business is going to tell you if you need to recover to a point in time or if you simply need the last full backup. It’s going to define if your data is recoverable by other means, such as manual entry, or if you have to protect as much as possible as it comes across the wire. You use Simple recovery if you can afford to lose the data stored since the last full or differential backup and/or you just don’t need recovery to a point in time. In Simple mode, you must restore all secondary read/write file groups when you restore the primary. You use Simple mostly on secondary databases that are not an absolute vital part of the enterprise or reporting systems, with read only access so there isn’t a transaction log to worry about anyway. You use Full if every bit of the data is vital, you need to recover to a point in time or, usually in the case of very large databases (VLDB), you need to restore individual files and file groups independently of other files and file groups. With both Simple and full recovery models, you can now run an sql server backup which allows you to copy the database to a backup file, but doesn’t affect the log, differential backup schedules or impact recovery to a point in time.

What makes hard drives prone to failure?

Wed, 23 May 2012 13:13:56 +0000

Hard drives are incredible feats of engineering. When they were first invented fifty years ago, they were the size of a refrigerator. Now they can be the size of your thumb, and hold more data than that fridge-sized drive did. Twenty years ago you only had a few term papers on your hard drive, but now you have your email, your photos, your music and much more. It’s one very concentrated point of potential failure. Inside every hard drive are one or more platters (usually glass) coated with magnetic material. The platter is spinning at 4,200 to 10,000 RPM. There are tiny read/write “heads” floating over the platter on delicate arms. The distance from head to platter is less than the breadth of a human hair. If the head accidentally touches the platter, it acts like a snowplow, scraping the magnetic material and your data off the platter. Forever. That’s just one way they can fail. The most common causes of data loss are:

Mechanical failure of the drive caused by being dropped, bumped while in use, or manufacturer defect.
Data corruption or directory damage caused by forgetting to eject disks before removing them (unplugging or powering them down), computer crashes, viruses, power loss, or plain bad luck.
Accidental deletion of files by emptying the trash, reformatting the hard drive, or reinstalling the operating system.
Environmental disasters like fires, floods, power surges, or extreme heat & humidity.

Drive technology is improving all the time–they have “loading ramps” and “Sudden Motion Sensors” and “Perpendicular Recording” and other acronymizable features. Every day they figure out how to cram more data into less space, so while they are making the drives smarter and safer, they are making the data denser and more fragile. Backups are the safety net that can turn a disaster into no big deal.

Filling the Gap in the Disaster Recovery Market for SMBs

Wed, 16 May 2012 13:51:17 +0000

As it stands today, the market for disaster recovery technology is split in two major areas: Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Disaster Recovery and Enterprise-grade Disaster Recovery. On the lower end you have solutions ranging from tape backup, cloud storage and other forms of backup, which — in a disaster scenario — an IT administrator is stuck patching together a recovery solution usually accompanied by lengthy time to recovery (RTO). On the higher end we see high availability and continuous data protection services that ensure no downtime but often come with a six-figure price tag, and require in-house staff who is dedicated to maintenance. In a recent webcast by Forrester,An Infrastructure and Operations Pro’s Guide to Cloud-based Disaster Recovery Services, Analyst Rachel Dines covers the current state of disaster recovery and the new model that is emerging, Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS), which addresses the gap that exists today. Here at Doyenz, we view the “gap” as a growth category representing a major opportunity for the channel. As we’ve seen in other markets — Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software in particular comes to mind — the cloud has made enterprise-grade technology affordable for small and mid-sized businesses. Emerging cloud-based disaster recovery technologies are beginning to fill that gap, however what’s still missing for the SMB is the budget for internal IT staff that is required to manage cloud recovery services. And therein lies the major opportunity for the channel and local service providers. A recent study commissioned by Microsoft suggests that local service providers are key to the projected SMBs adoption rates over the next three years. Many SMBs know they should adopt the cloud but are unsure which services make sense for their IT needs. vExpert David Davis recently penned a blog post identifyingthe 10 reasons that Disaster Recovery as a Service is essential for the SMB. According to Forrester, only 11 percent of companies today have adopted DRaaS (Disaster Recovery as a Service). If you are a managed service provider and are looking to grow your business, my bet is on DRaaS.

Sun: Tape storage evolving, not dead

Fri, 04 May 2012 01:44:06 +0000

Magnetic tape data storage may have been around for more than half a century, but systems administrators will be stuck with it for some time, according to one of Sun Microsystems’ top storage executives. “Tape’s going to be around for a long time,” Randy Kearns, vice president of Sun’s new Data Management Group, said in the wake of the finalization of Sun’s $4.1 billion acquisition of primarily tape-focused vendor StorageTek. However, Kearns is seeing changing patterns of usage for the venerable sequential-access medium, which is primarily used for backing up data stored on servers. The changes come as organizations are faced with an increasing need to comply with government regulations dealing with short- and long-term storage of company records. “Customers are changing the way they do backups. “Tapes aren’t going to be the backup medium of choice, but they’re going to be the long-term retention medium of choice. “It’s going to be the archives, and it’s going to be the generational copies that they never get back,” Kearns said. He claimed that customers have started to use disk-based systems for their daily backup needs. “You always thought about tape for backup, but that’s going to be more other technologies, disk-to-disk stuff, and continuous data protection stuff,” the United States-based executive told ZDNet Australia. He was in Melbourne to speak with partners, customers and staff last week. The disk migration, Kearns said, had probably begun about two years ago, when high-speed and Serial ATA, or SATA drives hit the market, “establishing a new price point for disk.” “It’s been going on, and we’re seeing different solutions, certainly disk-to-disk stuff has been a big deal,” Kearns said. “But now we’re starting to see some continuous backup products out on the market…things where we just keep track of changes and keep multiple generational backups–being able to establish a recovery time objective.” The new systems have some drawbacks: They take up a lot of energy and consequently aren’t economical for data that doesn’t need to be accessed frequently. “What we’re seeing is that (tape’s) still the most economical and environmentally friendly long-term storage,” Kearns said. “If you’re spinning disk and things like that, the power consumption and volumetric issues and so on are onerous.” Automation may also play a bigger part in future. “Tape automation is really going to be the main thing, in that you’re going to see big libraries, the robotics in them to handle tapes, so we get the human element out as much as possible,” Kearns said. According to the Sun executive, the death of tape has been predicted falsely now for some time. “I worked at IBM a long time, and I think it was 1974 that I was working in their general practice division in Colorado,” Kearns recalled. “The head of the general practice division said to us in an all-hands meeting there that IBM believes that tape is dead and (that) we should be getting out of tape.” “IBM did indeed get out of tape, and that’s what made StorageTek successful,” Kearns said. “Then IBM got back into tape, and now they’re No. 2 in the tape business, and StorageTek is No. 1. “So tapes are going to be around for a long time. The roles are going to be a little different and changing, but that’s just the way it is.” Renai LeMay of ZDNet Australia reported from Sydney.

Symantec issues patch for flaw in backup software

Fri, 04 May 2012 01:42:35 +0000

Security specialist Symantec issued a critical update on Tuesday for its Veritas NetBackup 6.0 PureDisk Remote Office Edition, whose vulnerabilities could allow attackers to gain remote control over a user’s system. Symantec issued the security update to address buffer overflow vulnerabilities found in the HTML-embedded scripting language PHP, which is used in its PureDisk software, according to Symantec’s security advisory. Symantec encountered similar buffer overflow vulnerabilities with its NetBackup software earlier this year. The concerns surrounding that problem were compounded when a security organization publicly released computer code that could exploit the flaws. In this latest case with PureDisk, however, Symantec says it is not aware of any publicly available exploit code.

Why You Should Avoid Mozy Backups

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 12:47:31 +0000

Published on September 18, 2007 in clearspace and mozy. 16 Comments

Note: Update from 9/20/07 with resolution to this issue can now be found at the end of this post. ————————– Ugh. I rarely use my blog to rant, but here it goes. I started using Mozy to backup my MacBook a couple of months ago. In keeping with my sys admin background, I dutifully made my first backup and then did a test restore of a few files – worked beautifully. Simple, online, and free backups for my Mac. I have been doing backups every couple of nights since then. About once a week, I even checked to make sure that the data was being backed up. Last Thursday, my Mac crashed and refused to reboot. Chris (Jive IT guy extraordinaire) attempted to save the data, but eventually the hard drive had to be reformatted. Total data loss. Oh well, it is a pain to reinstall everything, but I take regular backups, so no problem. Sigh. On Monday, I kicked off a full restore on the Mozy web site. This is what I ended up with:

You have 1 restore currently building. In the restore requested about 2 hours ago, 0 out of 11025 files are finished building. You will receive an email when the restore is complete.

At this point, I contact Mozy support to get an idea of how long these typically take. This was prior to 1:00 pm Pacific Time. I received an auto response stating that they would get back to me sometime the following day. Hmmm, maybe a less ambitious approach would be warranted? Yesterday around this time, I decided to try for the 11 files that I wanted right away. Still not working. I got this email at 9am this morning:

That’s weird your restore is taking so long. Obviously something is wrong and it isn’t restoring correctly. I would try again. You also have the option to restore from your virtual drive. If you click on your Mozy icon on the menu bar (the four square icon) and choose restore files you’ll be able to view and restore your files from there. This is typically the best option for a smaller amount of files like you are trying to download. Let us know how it goes.

Sigh, yeah I already tried all of this (and they should have been able to tell that I already tried again), so no help here. As I was writing this blog entry, I got an email requesting a copy of mozy.log. Interesting, I was performing a web restore, so there won’t be anything in the logs. My current Mozy status:

You have 1 restore currently building.

In the restore requested 1 day ago, 0 out of 11 files are finished building. You will receive an email when the restore is complete. Click here to view all your restores.

A quick Google of “mozy restore” will show that this is not an isolated issue. You may be asking yourself, “what kind of moron uses beta backup software?” ahem. OK, I am a bit lucky. The vast majority of my data is stored in other online services (Gmail, Jive’s Zimbra server, Clearspace collaboration platform), so hard drive backups are less critical for me than for most people. However, I still do not like losing data, and other people who rely more heavily on hard drive files could get seriously burned using Mozy. My advice to you? Run away from Mozy as fast as you can! This is an article we found online about Mozy, as we can not attest to the validity of the blog post we have seen many many blog posts just like this. At Datvat you can have a live customer service rep on the phone and the US, and if needed we can also overnight you a usb drive with your encrypted data on it. http://fastwonderblog.com/2007/09/18/why-you-should-avoid-mozy-backups/

Disaster recovery is about anticipating the worst

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 19:39:09 +0000

Disaster recovery is about anticipating the worst: how, and how quickly, can your company get back to work should a natural or man-made disaster strike. It starts with an honest risk assessment that focuses on the likelihood of a disaster, the industry DR regulations your company faces and the length of downtime you can tolerate. From that assessment, the action plan emerges.The experts @ datvat can asses ways your company can address these issues and describe a real-world examples and solutions. Call 866-272-5435 for a free assesment.

SMB Backup Precautions

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 12:54:25 +0000

Despite countless warnings and alarming statistics from many sources, the majority of SMBs (small and medium-sized businesses) are still reluctant to take the proper precautions to assure business continuity after a disaster. Our own records based on 11 years of research exclusive to NYC companies with fewer than 100 employees indicate that 90 percent of these businesses have faulty backup and disaster recovery systems. According to a 2011 Symantec SMB survey (note that the statistics for companies with fewer than 100 employees are far more drastic): • 52 percent of SMBs do not have a disaster preparedness plan. • Of the SMBs that do have a disaster preparedness plan, only 24 percent are using the cloud. • SMB’s went through an average of five outages in 2011. • 49 percent of SMBs implemented a disaster preparedness plan due to a previous outage or data loss. Reliable backups are the core to any data protection strategy, but by many estimates from various sources, more than half of all backups fail either in whole or in part. Here is a list of the 5 problems that cause backup failure, in decreasing order of frequency:

1. Media failure

Tapes are the real culprit here. If you take out tape drives, media failures would be at the bottom of the list. Be sure you follow the vendor’s directions for handling and storage, replacing the tapes regularly and cleaning the drives according to the manufacturer’s schedule. It also means discarding any suspicious tapes. Don’t assume disk-based backup protects you from media-related failures. While the incidence of media-related failures is considerably lower with disk than tape, failures still occur. Also don’t try to save money by using backup arrays that don’t have features like redundant power supplies and hot spare disks leaves data at risk.

2. Human error

In spite of its No. 2 ranking, human error is the most prolific cause of backup failures. The best safeguard against human error is to invest in a managed service provider that will configure, monitor and maintain your systems on a continual basis. Don’t take their word for it- if they don’t have the means to issue a weekly change and status report on your entire backup and DR infrastructure then they are probably not doing it! Secondly, make sure that the people performing backups and restores understand exactly what they need to do- and what not to do. It is also a good idea to take humans out of the loop as much as possible. When configured properly, backups should be automated and should not require any human action. Modern backup software is extremely flexible and the installer has a lot of options to choose from. Choosing the wrong options can result in incomplete backups or backups that fail completely. A related problem is that backup configurations are no more static than anything else in a modern storage environment. As resources are added and shifted and as priorities change, the list of files to be backed up needs to change as well.

3. Software failure

Sometimes new software or new versions of software can cause backup failures. For example, Service Pack 2 (SP2) for Windows XP turns on the firewall by default. When Microsoft released SP2, a lot of network backups failed because the backup software wasn’t designed to work through a firewall. More commonly, the problem is misconfiguration caused by person who sets it up.

4. Hardware failure

Libraries, disk arrays and other backup hardware can also fail. Most of the causes and failure conditions for backup hardware are the same as for other kinds of hardware, but there are a few conditions that are specific to backup systems. For example, drift produces a particularly nasty kind of failure in tape drives. As the drive ages, the heads slowly wander out of alignment. As a result, other drives can’t read the tape — and the drive can’t read a tape it wrote some time ago. The dangerous part of this is that the drive can almost always read a tape it just wrote, so the tape passes an immediate verification step in the backup process without complaint.

5. Network failure

Backing up over a network increases efficiency by reducing the number of backup devices. However, it also introduces another point of failure into the backup process. Everything from a failed or flaky HBA to a misconfigured switch can cause a backup to fail. This is a less prolific source of backup failures because the network, LAN or SAN, is used for much more than just backup, so problems will tend to become obvious before they can hurt your backups. According to a 2011 Pepperdine University study, 29% of data loss incidents were the result of human error. We believe that statistic to be grossly underestimated. Technology on Premises believes that computers and backup systems (other than tape drives) are nearly perfect. The reasoning behind this statement is that if you dig deeply enough, behind every computer error you will find a human error that caused it. This is why we do not employ any junior-level engineers. If you’re a small business and are concerned that your Backup or Disaster Recovery systems may not be up to par, please call us for a free Backup Systems Assessment at 866-272-5435 .

Server Backup

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 03:02:45 +0000

An automated data protection, for your server backup.

Datvat gives your business a complete solution for remote and mult-site backups and disaster recovery planning. Datvat is a next-generation

server backup service that is easy to deploy and manage and requires no investment in expensive hardware or software.

Our server backup solution features:

• Fully-automated and encrypted offsite server backup and data recovery via the internet

• Centralized management for all your servers, desktops, laptops and remote locations

• Hot database backup including SQL Backup and Exchange Backup

• Fast restores (plus message level restore for Exchange)

• Advanced compression, de-duplication and incremental server backups

• Autonomic self healing detects corrupt data and corrects it

• AES encryption (in flight and at rest)

• World-class data center facilities – N+1 scalability and redundancy

• Rapid LAN speed restores

The most efficient method for automated offsite data protection and data recovery for your server.

Datvat gives your business a complete solution for remote and mult-site backups and disaster recovery planning. Datvat is a next-generation server backup service that is easy to deploy and manage and requires no investment in expensive hardware or software.

Breaking Traditions in Small-Business Backup

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 09:02:50 +0000

Following old-school backup routines for data backup could put your business at risk. To avoid disaster, you need to think about what data you need to recover—and how quickly.

When it comes down to the nitty-gritty details of backup, most small-business owners (along with most individual users) have a less-than-solid grasp on the reality of their backup needs. This knowledge gap should come as no surprise, since the path of least resistance is to follow the tradition of daily backup, rather than taking the time to examine one’s workflow and determine real needs.

Most servers aimed at the small-business market come with a tape drive built in for backup. At the end of day, a script runs to back up the data on the server and perhaps the client computers on the network. Every day (or every week), someone swaps out the tape. This is the common knowledge and the familiar practice. And most small businesses think they’ve done their duty with that backup scheme. Small-business owners should regard that nightly backup like the prescription of an apple a day for health. The practice certainly can’t hurt—but like that apple, once a day is probably not enough backup for your business. “One of the biggest problems with backup is that customers need to determine which data is more critical to their business than other data,” observed Don Chouinard, director of marketing at backup vendor Dantz Development Corp. “The key to defining a credible backup and recovery strategy is to first determine the value of the data and then how much time can be lost without impact on the organization.” Chouinard points to two issues that owners must settle up front. In the IT trade, these variables are called Recovery Point Objective, or the age of the data you will be able to restore your records to after a disaster strikes; and Recovery Time Objective, or the time that will be needed to resume your business activity after a problem. Of course, each company will have a different answer to these questions. For some businesses, the order-entry database and server will hold the critical data. However, for some small businesses, their e-mail messages may hold critical data about customers and orders. In any case, only the owner of a business can determine how much data loss is acceptable (after all, that’s the hard-core version of the question) and how long the total recovery process will take. Data that’s backed up more frequently will reduce the amount of lost data and may allow users to resume business faster. At the same time, more backups will require more diligence and entail higher costs. It’s natural to think first of server-based data when considering backup, and then perhaps the data held in workstations sitting on or under people’s desks. This perspective is yet another old-fashioned belief that’s out of touch with today’s business environment. It presupposes a 9-to-5 work day in the office. Nowadays, small business workers are mobile. According to analyst Gartner Inc., 25 percent of all computers sold are notebooks, and that percentage will rise to one in three within a couple of years. The company said many users have exchanged deskbound models for a mobile alternative. In addition, small and midsize businesses “offer some of the most realizable growth prospects for mobile PCs in the short and medium term.” Other analyst reports estimate that some businesses hold most of their critical data on PCs and notebooks rather than servers. But again, it’s the server that receives the attention when it comes to backup. “While [client-side data] may be more static and can be backed up less frequently, it needs to be protected just as well as the order-entry system,” Chouinard said. He had it right at the top: The biggest problem with backup is that someone in the business needs to take a look at what data is critical and where it’s all stored. For most small-business owners, that chore is a big bore. And it’s easier to let inertia take over and continue to believe in the traditional once-a-day backup plan. Doesn’t that apple taste great? David Morgenstern is a longtime reporter of the storage industry as well as a veteran of the dotcom boom in the storage-rich fields of professional content creation and digital video.