Backing Up and Restoring Databases

Administering SQL Server

Administering SQL Server

Backing Up and Restoring Databases

The backup and restore component of Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2000 provides an important safeguard for protecting critical data stored in SQL Server databases.

With proper planning, you can recover from many failures, including:

  • Media failure.

  • User errors.

  • Permanent loss of a server.

Additionally, backing up and restoring databases is useful for other purposes, such as copying a database from one server to another. By backing up a database from one computer and restoring the database to another, a copy of a database can be made quickly and easily.

This section provides the information necessary to implement a complete backup and recovery plan.

Topic Description
Designing a Backup and Restore Strategy Helps you analyze and refine your data availability requirements and choose a recovery model for each database.
Using Recovery Models Describes each recovery model in detail, as well as appropriate backup and restore strategies. This topic also describes how to switch between recovery models.
Backup and Restore Operations Describes the various types of backups available and how they are used. This topic also describes point-in-time recovery, restarting a failed backup or restore, recovering to a particular transaction, and recovering part of a database.
Managing Backups Describes backup devices, the backup format, and removable media terminology. This section also describes password security and media management including formatting, appending, overwriting, listing, and verifying media contents.
Backing Up and Restoring the System Databases Describes the procedures necessary to protect and recover the system databases.
Handling Large Mission-Critical Environments Describes features and techniques appropriate for highly available or very large production databases. These include using multiple backup devices, file and filegroup backups, file differential backups, and snapshot backups.
Copying Databases to Other Servers Describes the use of backup and restore to quickly transport a database to another server.

See Also

Backup/Restore Architecture

Copying Databases to Other Servers

Databases

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