I am starting to load a data warehouse for a retention period of 10 years. My database backup plan is as follows -
1. Perform full back on Sunday.
2. Perform differential backup everyday from Mon - Sat.
3. Perform transaction log back-ups every hour on all days.
My recovery mode is going to be BULK-LOGGED at all times. I had a few questions / comments on the Maintenance Plan that I would be creating for the back-ups. My database name is Warehouse.
1. Differential Backups cannot be created via a Maintenance Plan. Only a full-backup gets created. Am I correct?
2. I shall be running Optimizations and Integrity checks prior to full-backup. Is this ok?
3. Remove files (both .BAK and .TRN) older than - I am thinking of having 6 days. I want only one full back-up at a time in the server. What settings can I use? I think the old back-up gets deleted when the new one is successful. What settings in the Maintainence Plan do I have to use to overwrite the previous back-up with the current one?
System Databases -
Should the settings for System Databases be the same as my Warehouse database?
The Maintenance Plan takes care of full-back up and TLOG back-ups. For Differential Backups I have to use the All Tasks from EM and specify the Differential Backup job. Correct?
All kinds of back-ups can occur in the database when it is active. Meaning, I have a job that loads data in the warehouse when a back-up is occurring simultaneously. Am I correct?
I do not intend to shrink the Transaction Log at any time, since it gets backed up every hour I do not expect it to grow to a large size. If I do have to shrink it, then I change the recover mode to Simple, shrink the log and then immediately do a full-backup and after that set the mode back to Bulk-Logged. Is the sequence of steps correct?
Please let me know your inputs.
Thanks,
Vivek1. Incorrect. Please refer to BOL.
2. Sure it's okay. It can be resource intensive so you may consider running during non-peak hours. Also, you should always run DBCC CHECKDB before a backup and if possible, after a backup completes. the sooner you find a problem, the better.
3. Delete all tran and diff backups after a successful full backup completes and has been written to another media (secondary copy) such as tape
IF YOU ARE RUNNING TRAN LOG BACKUPS, YOUR TRAN LOG GETS AUTOMATICALLY TRUNCATED. IN ANY CASE, YOU ARE RUNNING IN BULK MODEL. YOU REALLY SHOULD READ BOL.
Showing posts with label plan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label plan. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Friday, February 24, 2012
Failure to Remove Old Transaction Log Backups
I've just become the DBA. The origianl Maintenance Plan was setup to remove
old TRasact Log Backups. This has not worked in several months. Does anyone
have an idea why a working plan would fail? Everything appears to be set
correctly. Is there any advantage to placing optimimization in a seperate
plan from the backups?
Here is a post from Bill at MS that outlines the most common reasons for
this:
-- Log files don't delete --
http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;Q303292
This is likely to be either a permissions problem or a sharing violation
problem. The maintenance plan is run as a job, and jobs are run by the
SQLServerAgent service.
Permissions:
1. Determine the startup account for the SQLServerAgent service
(Start|Programs|Administrative tools|Services|SQLServerAgent|Startup). This
account is the security context for jobs, and thus the maintenance plan.
2. If SQLServerAgent is started using LocalSystem (as opposed to a domain
account) then skip step 3.
3. On that box, log onto NT as that account. Using Explorer, attempt to
delete an expired backup. If that succeeds then go to Sharing Violation
section.
4. Log onto NT with an account that is an administrator and use Explorer to
look at the Properties|Security of the folder (where the backups reside)
and ensure the SQLServerAgent startup account has Full Control. If the
SQLServerAgent startup account is LocalSystem, then the account to consider
is SYSTEM.
5. In NT, if an account is a member of an NT group, and if that group has
Access is Denied, then that account will have Access is Denied, even if
that account is also a member of the Administrators group. Thus you may
need to check group permissions (if the Startup Account is a member of a
group).
6. Keep in mind that permissions (by default) are inherited from a parent
folder. Thus, if the backups are stored in C:\bak, and if someone had
denied permission to the SQLServerAgent startup account for C:\, then
C:\bak will inherit access is denied.
Sharing violation:
This is likely to be rooted in a timing issue, with the most likely cause
being another scheduled process (such as NT Backup or Anti-Virus software)
having the backup file open at the time when the SQLServerAgent (i.e., the
maintenance plan job) tried to delete it.
1. Download filemon and handle from www.sysinternals.com.
2. I am not sure whether filemon can be scheduled, or you might be able to
use NT scheduling services to start filemon just before the maintenance
plan job is started, but the filemon log can become very large, so it would
be best to start it some short time before the maintenance plan starts.
3. Inspect the filemon log for another process that has that backup file
open (if your lucky enough to have started filemon before this other
process grabs the backup folder), and inspect the log for the results when
the SQLServerAgent agent attempts to open that same file.
4. Schedule the job or that other process to do their work at different
times.
5. You can use the handle utility if you are around at the time when the
job is scheduled to run.
If the backup files are going to a \\share or a mapped drive (as opposed to
local drive), then you will need to modify the above (with respect to where
the tests and utilities are run).
Finally, inspection of the maintenance plan's history report might be
useful.
Thanks,
Bill Hollinshead
Microsoft, SQL Server
Andrew J. Kelly SQL MVP
"mark_at_msb" <mark_at_msb@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:486897A4-7C19-4924-845D-0A724D4E4899@.microsoft.com...
> I've just become the DBA. The origianl Maintenance Plan was setup to
remove
> old TRasact Log Backups. This has not worked in several months. Does
anyone
> have an idea why a working plan would fail? Everything appears to be set
> correctly. Is there any advantage to placing optimimization in a seperate
> plan from the backups?
old TRasact Log Backups. This has not worked in several months. Does anyone
have an idea why a working plan would fail? Everything appears to be set
correctly. Is there any advantage to placing optimimization in a seperate
plan from the backups?
Here is a post from Bill at MS that outlines the most common reasons for
this:
-- Log files don't delete --
http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;Q303292
This is likely to be either a permissions problem or a sharing violation
problem. The maintenance plan is run as a job, and jobs are run by the
SQLServerAgent service.
Permissions:
1. Determine the startup account for the SQLServerAgent service
(Start|Programs|Administrative tools|Services|SQLServerAgent|Startup). This
account is the security context for jobs, and thus the maintenance plan.
2. If SQLServerAgent is started using LocalSystem (as opposed to a domain
account) then skip step 3.
3. On that box, log onto NT as that account. Using Explorer, attempt to
delete an expired backup. If that succeeds then go to Sharing Violation
section.
4. Log onto NT with an account that is an administrator and use Explorer to
look at the Properties|Security of the folder (where the backups reside)
and ensure the SQLServerAgent startup account has Full Control. If the
SQLServerAgent startup account is LocalSystem, then the account to consider
is SYSTEM.
5. In NT, if an account is a member of an NT group, and if that group has
Access is Denied, then that account will have Access is Denied, even if
that account is also a member of the Administrators group. Thus you may
need to check group permissions (if the Startup Account is a member of a
group).
6. Keep in mind that permissions (by default) are inherited from a parent
folder. Thus, if the backups are stored in C:\bak, and if someone had
denied permission to the SQLServerAgent startup account for C:\, then
C:\bak will inherit access is denied.
Sharing violation:
This is likely to be rooted in a timing issue, with the most likely cause
being another scheduled process (such as NT Backup or Anti-Virus software)
having the backup file open at the time when the SQLServerAgent (i.e., the
maintenance plan job) tried to delete it.
1. Download filemon and handle from www.sysinternals.com.
2. I am not sure whether filemon can be scheduled, or you might be able to
use NT scheduling services to start filemon just before the maintenance
plan job is started, but the filemon log can become very large, so it would
be best to start it some short time before the maintenance plan starts.
3. Inspect the filemon log for another process that has that backup file
open (if your lucky enough to have started filemon before this other
process grabs the backup folder), and inspect the log for the results when
the SQLServerAgent agent attempts to open that same file.
4. Schedule the job or that other process to do their work at different
times.
5. You can use the handle utility if you are around at the time when the
job is scheduled to run.
If the backup files are going to a \\share or a mapped drive (as opposed to
local drive), then you will need to modify the above (with respect to where
the tests and utilities are run).
Finally, inspection of the maintenance plan's history report might be
useful.
Thanks,
Bill Hollinshead
Microsoft, SQL Server
Andrew J. Kelly SQL MVP
"mark_at_msb" <mark_at_msb@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:486897A4-7C19-4924-845D-0A724D4E4899@.microsoft.com...
> I've just become the DBA. The origianl Maintenance Plan was setup to
remove
> old TRasact Log Backups. This has not worked in several months. Does
anyone
> have an idea why a working plan would fail? Everything appears to be set
> correctly. Is there any advantage to placing optimimization in a seperate
> plan from the backups?
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