InfoScale™ 9.0 Storage Foundation Quick Recovery Solutions Guide for Microsoft SQL Server - Windows
- Introducing Quick Recovery for SQL Server
- About Quick Recovery snapshot solutions
- About snapshot-assisted backups
- Advantages of Quick Recovery snapshots
- Quick Recovery process
- Methods of implementing Quick Recovery snapshots for SQL Server
- About the components used in Quick Recovery
- VCS, Microsoft clustering, and Volume Replicator considerations
- About the Solutions Configuration Center
- Starting the Configuration Center
- Solutions wizard logs
- Preparing to implement Quick Recovery for SQL Server
- Implementing Quick Recovery for SQL Server with the configuration wizard
- About the Quick Recovery Configuration Wizard
- Tasks for implementing snapshot sets with the configuration wizard
- Reviewing the prerequisites
- Scheduling SQL Server snapshot sets
- System Selection panel details
- Instance Selection panel details
- Mount Details panel details
- Synchronizing Schedules panel details
- Template Selection panel details
- Number of Snapshot Sets panel details
- Snapshot Volume Assignment panel details
- Snapshot Schedule panel details
- Specifying snapshot schedule details
- Summary panel details
- Template Implementation panel
- Scheduling or creating an individual snapshot set for SQL Server
- Maintaining or troubleshooting snapshots
- Recovering a SQL Server database
- About recovering a SQL Server database
- Tasks for recovering a SQL Server database
- Prerequisites for recovering a SQL Server database
- Types of recovery
- Recovering using snapshots without log replay
- Recovering using snapshots and log replay
- Restoring snapshots and manually applying logs
- Recovering missing volumes
- Post-recovery steps
- Vxsnap restore command reference
- Vxsnap utility command line reference for SQL Server
About Quick Recovery snapshot solutions
Storage Foundation for Windows (SFW) provides the capability to create a point-in-time image of all the volumes associated with a SQL Server instance. This image, called a snapshot set, is a complete copy of the SQL Server instance at the specific point in time the snapshots are taken.
SFW uses Veritas FlashSnap™ technology along with the Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) framework to quiesce the database and ensure a persistent snapshot of the production data.
Quick Recovery is the term for creating and maintaining the SFW snapshot sets on-host for use in quickly recovering databases in the event of corruption or an accidental or malicious update. Quick Recovery is designed to augment your traditional backup methodology. The Quick Recovery solution provides fast recovery from logical errors and eliminates the time-consuming process of restoring data from tape. Databases can be recovered to the point in time when the snapshot was taken or, by using current logs, rolled forward to the point of failure.
Using the SFW Quick Recovery Configuration wizard, you can create multiple snapshot sets for each SQL Server instance and set up schedules for creating and refreshing the snapshot sets. The snapshot sets can be maintained on-host as a Quick Recovery solution.
If you are using Volume Replicator for replication, you can also synchronize snapshot sets on the secondary site. See the Volume Replicator Administrator's Guide.
SFW snapshots use a split-mirror snapshot method. The snapshot is a separate persistent volume that contains an exact duplicate of all the data on the original volume at the time the snapshot is taken. This type of persistent physical snapshot is also known as a Clone (HP) or a BCV (EMC). In contrast, copy-on-write snapshots, also known as metadata snapshots, only copy changed blocks to the snapshot and do not create a separate physical volume.
Because a snapshot set contains a split-mirror snapshot copy of each of the volumes in the database, the snapshot set requires the same amount of space as the original volumes.
Veritas FlashSnap technology is also integrated into the NTBackup 6.0 Advanced Client Option. This solution is preferred for on and off host snapshot-assisted backup.