Databases are without doubt getting larger by the day.
Data will simply accumulate over time, unless you partition
your data by time periods. The effect of this is that
backups get larger, and the time required to perform those backups
increase proportionately.
Enter third party backup applications. What exactly do
they do? Well, at the very core of it, they are able to
compress your backup data. Some offer the option to encrypt
your data as well. Others may offer a slick looking GUI to
better manage your backups. However, backup compression is
what most users are after. So, why are those backup
applications so popular again?
·compressed backup data creates smaller backup files
·time taken to back up is also usually faster. This is
only true if the bottleneck was the write throughput. See
Speeding up
backups for a more detailed explanation.
·time taken to restore is also usually faster
·encryption, where offerred, provides an additional level of
security
How about the costs? Well:
·you've have to budget for the purchase and maintenance
costs of the third party tool
·CPU requirements will increase, depending on the
compression algorithm used. If your CPU on the primary server
is already maxed out, using a backup tool would affect server
performance even more.
Some of the products that are available on the market are
SQL Backup from Red Gate
Software, Litespeed from Quest, SQLSafe from Idera and HyperBac from Hyperbac
Technologies.
 |
SQL Server 2008 will offer compressed backups in the
Enterprise edition. |
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Now, the most common question when faced with using a third
party application is 'Is this safe?'. I mean, you're trusting
your entire organization's data to a third-party vendor.
Like, could it get any more major than that? Wouldn't
it be good to know a little about how exactly these applications
are going about getting the data? Well, that's covered in
this article, and who knows, you might even be able to
roll your own backup application after reading that article!
Document history
6/27/2008 | Initial release. |