Microsoft SQL Server Disaster Recovery Best Practices
Not everyone can understand the importance of backup testing more than database administrators (DBAs). For most of organizations, it is not good to completely rely on tape backups for disaster recovery. Thus, in this blog, we will explain the pros and cons of Microsoft SQL Server disaster recovery best practices in detail. Before selecting the disaster recovery solution, first, you have to determine your goals and objectives.
SQL Server Disaster Recovery- Basic Points
The disaster recovery plan must be completed and contain all dependencies. When there is a need to restore the up-to-date SQL Server, you should ensure that all dependencies of SQL Server are put in place. File system dependencies, Windows accounts, applications and many other aspects of the server must be available, as all disaster recovery plans failed because the hardware platform dependency is not in place. This can also include the tape drives in different locations, missing password for a password-protected tape or incorrect version of either firmware or a tape drive itself.
Your plan must be as simple and officious as possible. Few disaster recovery technologies limits what might be done on the source server, like whether you can modify the recovery model whenever using the database mirroring. Some other steps to ensure that the SQL Server disaster recovery site is often up to date: Replication and log shipping can not replicate logins, and many processes are needed to ensure that all logins are in one place and current at a disaster recovery (DR) site.
Some solutions may require significant time before the site is operational and a few software database mirroring solution will take time to quiet before the database is accessible. Performing the disaster recovery plan is a tough operation that involves many steps; a basic plan with a lot moving parts limit with complexity and improve the reliability of the disaster recovery plan.
SQL Server Disaster Recovery Services
Go through the following disaster recovery options available in SQL Server along with their pros and cons:
- Backup and restore option
The backup and restore option is very simple that includes all database objects, but simultaneously, it is not scalable for a large scale database. Moving a database to the disaster recovery site will take much time, thus it creates the risk of data loss.
- SQL Server Log shipping
This option will also include all database objects and easily understandable. Exposure to data loss, when the minimal schedule used. On the downside, you become vulnerable to events that break a log shipping chain, like changing the database recovery model. The log shipping is not scalable, and you may not back up the transaction log while a database itself is being backed up.
- SQL Database mirroring
The low latency and automatic redirecting clients to a standby site is an advantage, but database mirroring is only for workloads with a high-performance mode that is available in SQL Server’s Enterprise Edition. The success of mirroring technology that depends on the speed and available network bandwidth.
- Replication Option
This option can selectively replicate a subset of objects or data. With peer-to-peer replication or bi-directional transactional replication, failover and failback both are unproblematic. Although the Latency is very high during the batch operations, and all database objects cannot be replicated. With SQL Server 2005 while using bi-directional transactional or peer-to-peer replication, you can disconnect users from a specific database as you make changes in the schema, but SQL Database 2008 does not require this.
- Software database mirroring
Software database mirroring works at a file system level. They can filter some changes to the file system and replicate ones you choose to be mirrored. If necessary, you can mirror an alteration to your database files such as MDF, NDF, and LDF. This software database mirroring solution will copy all these changes to the destination. Also, they can perform the compression on the fly.
- Hardware database mirroring
At last, the hardware database mirroring solution involves a split write: the application issue is write operation on source server, which is written to the destination server, and application will continue to the next operation. This is a strong option that provides no high risk of data loss. A disaster recovery site, however, it is not accessible while being mirrored. All these solutions are very costly and include latency too.
Professional Way to Repair Corrupt SQL Server Database
If somehow the corruption still persists in your SQL Server database or your MDF file is damaged then you can opt for a reliable third-party solution ie SQL Recovery Tool. It is capable to repair both primary (.mdf) and secondary (.ndf) database files. With the help of this tool, users can recover all deleted SQL database objects in a seamless manner. It has a user-friendly interface that even a novice user can avail it without taking assistance from an expert.
Let’s Wrap Up
In this blog, we have introduced various Microsoft SQL Server disaster recovery plan to keep database safe. Also, we have suggested an automated approach namely SQL Recovery tool, which helps to fix all corruption issues in SQL database. It is the best solution to repair corrupt MDF and NDF SQL Server Database without any technical guidance.
