Testing backups – Is RESTORE DATABASE…VERIFYONLY good enough?
Is it just me, or does there seem to be a lot of discussion these days about testing backups and having a good restore plan in place, before you need it. You don’t want to be “testing” your backups at 3am during a critical restore operation. Verify Backup Integrity (aka RESTORE VERIFYONLY) So when it [...]
June 4, 2012
Tags: backups, recovery, SQL Server Posted in: Maintenance 
2 Comments
Backup script skipping databases – and the fix!
I’ve been using my RYO Maintenance scripts for a little while now, and they’ve been working great. Almost. One day I noticed that the backup script hadn’t backed up all of the databases on my instance. I checked the job history, no errors. I checked the SQL Server log, no errors. I checked the Windows [...]
March 26, 2012
Tags: backups, database maintenance, scripts, SQL Server Posted in: Maintenance 13 Comments
RYO Maintenance Plan – Database Backups, Part 3
I’ve covered creating my backup directories and the actual backup of the database(s). The last thing I want to do in my process is clean up any old backup files. Once again, I want to allow for some flexibility in my procedure. Much like the maintenance plan task I’m replacing, my procedure should be able [...]
February 6, 2012
Tags: backups, database maintenance, scripts, SQL Server Posted in: Maintenance, T-SQL 5 Comments
RYO Maintenance Plan – Database Backups, Part 2
Last time I dealt with the creation of subdirectories, in one or more root locations, to house my database backups. Today we’ll get into the meat of the database backup procedure itself. If you’ll recall, this procedure has to meet some specific criteria: It will need a minimum of tweaking to implement and maintain. It [...]
January 30, 2012
Tags: backups, database maintenance, scripts, SQL Server Posted in: Maintenance, T-SQL 4 Comments
RYO Maintenance Plan – Database Backups
Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a big proponent of automating routine tasks. If I have to do something more than twice, it should be scripted (if not fully automated). I’ve also made it fairly clear that I’m no fan of SSIS. So with all that in mind, it should be no surprise when [...]
January 23, 2012
Tags: backups, database maintenance, scripts, SQL Server Posted in: Maintenance, T-SQL 6 Comments
