A Fine Slice Of SQL Server
Tom Collins has a backup to restore:
I have a SQL Server with TDE enabled and the user databases are TDE configured. I need to take a backup and restore the TDE enabled database to another SQL Server Instance . Could you take me through the steps including prerequisites?
The answer is yes. And Tom is so kind as to show the answer rather than giving a flippant response, which is my modus operandi.
Comments closedJoey D’Antoni troubleshoots a problem:
We had a case over the weekend where our automated restore process at client got hung up on this wait type, for a single database. What was the unique characteristic about this relatively medium (2-300 GB) database? It had a lot of filestream data–it seemed like the file count wasn’t that high, but my guess is the filestream data was the majority of the data in that database. When the job hung up, the restore had been waiting on PREEMPTIVE_OS_FILEOPS for over a day and still had a null value for percentage complete.
Click through to see what the problem was.
Comments closedAbhishek Shaha and Ahmed Mahmoud enumerate techniques to export an Azure SQL Database:
Export Azure SQL Database is a common request for Azure SQL DB customers, in this article we are going to list down some advanced scenarios, on how this can be achievable through various tools not limited to Azure Portal, Azure CLI and PowerShell. In addition, this article will provide alternative methods when it comes to private endpoints and deny public access.
Click through for several options.
Comments closedMarc Lelijveld backs that thing up:
Basically for every data model, but in particular for large and enterprise-grade data models, it might be wishful to perform backups. Power BI Premium offers a way to perform backup and restore operations for Power BI datasets. This feature, coming from Azure Analysis Services, helps you to take a backup of your dataset logic as well as the data itself and the ability to restore in case your dataset gets corrupted or backend processes have failed. Furthermore, this backup and restore process is also a way to migrate your datasets from Analysis Services to Power BI Premium.
In this blog, I describe what is needed for Power BI backup operations, how you can perform them and how to script / automate them.
Read on for the process.
Comments closedJoey D’Antoni is not impressed:
While some services include other really useful features (for example the query data collected by the Azure SQL Database and Managed Instance platforms), I wanted to focus on the common value adds to PaaS systems across providers. I made the last two of these bold, because I feel like they are are the most important, especially in scenarios where the vendor doesn’t own the source to the applications. Like Amazon RDS for SQL Server.
Click through for Joey’s thoughts on the topic.
Comments closedBrendan McCaffrey offers up some guidance:
With Availability Groups there has always been a common theme across the industry to offload your database backups to a secondary replica. It sounds great in theory. I know people that have done this. I also know people that “thought” they were doing this. But the question is, should you be doing this?
Your scientists spent so long figuring out if they could that they forgot to ask if they should.
Comments closedGrant Fritchey is learning about PostgreSQL:
One of the first things I worry about when I’m looking at a new system is the status of the backups. I don’t see anything in PostgreSQL that will lead me to a different conclusion. However, I didn’t realize just how big a can of worms I would open by pursuing backups and restores.
Instead of talking immediately about backups, let’s talk about restores.
This is a bit different from what we’re used to in SQL Server, so definitely check it out if you are looking at Postgres development or administration.
Comments closedGrant Fritchey tests a restore plan:
I recently wrote an article about PostgreSQL restores (and by extension, backups) over on Simple-Talk. The restore process within PostgreSQL, without 3rd party involvement, can be a little tricky. However, when you are using a Platform as a Service offering, like Azure Database for PostgreSQL, things get quite a bit easier. Let’s explore this just a little.
Read the whole thing if you’re thinking about PostgreSQL or Azure Database for PostgreSQL.
Comments closedReiss McSporran walks us through using Azure Backup to manage virtual machine backups:
Backups are configured for each VM individually, selecting their own retention policies and routines. They can however utilise the same storage and vaults.
Click through for a step-by-step guide on setting up a backup, using a backup to create a new VM, and replacing an existing VM with a backup.
Comments closedChad Callihan notes an increasingly dangerous problem:
I’m guessing that we’ve all dealt with a computer virus or malware at some point in our lives. Dealing with these issues can range from annoying to absolutely devastating.
Even at their worst, viruses or malware are not typically on the same level as a ransomware attack. Sure, you may hate not being able to access your games or documents on your laptop due to a virus. But when a company is attacked with ransomware there are more financial complications.
Ransomware has picked up steam in recent years, making the idea of keeping backups air-gapped more appealing.
I chatted with a consulting client of mine yesterday about this very thing. One of their customers was hit by a major ransomware attack which put them behind for an entire year (and would have been considerably worse if they hadn’t been using my client’s software, as it has both cloud and on-prem components, so they could safely fall back to the cloud side while they rebuilt their entire on-prem infrastructure from scratch). Recent ransomware will not only encrypt the files on local disk but will also try to figure out where backups get stored, access that location using the backup service account, and encrypt those backup files as well.
Comments closed