Backup and Recovery

To maintain data reliability is one of the most important of an administrator's responsibilities. SQL Server helps in fulfilling this responsibility via very sophisticated backup and restore features. This chapter is going to describe in detail what's needed to choose an appropriate database backup strategy in conjunction with its usage and configuration, and how to use stored backups to restore a database in case of failure.

At the end of this chapter, we will understand the following points:

• Data structures and transaction logging: How SQL Server handles data. This knowledge is highly welcome for good understanding of what, when, and why should be backed up.
• Backup:
  
  • How to configure the server and database properly for certain backup types
  • What kind of backups are on the playground and how to use them
• Restore:
  • How to prepare the database for restore and the restore process itself
  • Sample restore scenarios