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.

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!