Database Backup and Restores Drills in SQL Server

by Dec 20, 2023

database illustration  

Creating backups and restoring them is crucial for maintaining the integrity and availability of data in Microsoft SQL Server.

Here’s a set of drills for backup and restore operations:

Drills Order:

  1. Create a full backup.
  2. Perform operations on your database.
  3. Create a differential backup.
  4. Perform more operations or simulate a failure.
  5. Create transaction log backups regularly.
  6. Restore the full backup, then the differential backup, and apply transaction log backups to recover the database to a specific point in time.

Backup Drills:

Full Database Backup:

Perform a full backup of a specific database using SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) or Transact-SQL (T-SQL) commands:

BACKUP DATABASE [YourDatabaseName] TO DISK = 'C:\Backup\YourDatabaseName_Full.bak' WITH FORMAT, INIT, NAME = 'Full Backup of YourDatabaseName';

Differential Backup:

Execute a differential backup after a full backup:

BACKUP DATABASE [YourDatabaseName] TO DISK = 'C:\Backup\YourDatabaseName_Diff.bak' WITH DIFFERENTIAL, INIT, NAME = 'Differential Backup of YourDatabaseName';

Transaction Log Backup:

Perform a transaction log backup to capture transaction logs:

BACKUP LOG [YourDatabaseName] TO DISK = 'C:\Backup\YourDatabaseName_Log.trn' WITH INIT, NAME = 'Transaction Log Backup of YourDatabaseName';

Restore Drills:

Full Database Restore:

Restore a full database backup:

RESTORE DATABASE [RestoredDatabaseName] FROM DISK = 'C:\Backup\YourDatabaseName_Full.bak' WITH REPLACE, RECOVERY;

Differential Restore:

Restore a differential backup after restoring the full backup:

RESTORE DATABASE [RestoredDatabaseName] FROM DISK = 'C:\Backup\YourDatabaseName_Diff.bak' WITH NORECOVERY;

Transaction Log Restore:

Restore transaction log backups to recover to a specific point in time:

RESTORE LOG [RestoredDatabaseName] FROM DISK = 'C:\Backup\YourDatabaseName_Log.trn' WITH RECOVERY;

 

Note: Always ensure your backups are stored securely, regularly test your backup and restore processes, and understand the implications of each operation before executing it in a production environment.

Remember to replace [YourDatabaseName], [RestoredDatabaseName], and file paths with your actual database names and backup paths.