Frequency of Backups?? 2

[simmolinho]

Are there any conventions regarding how often to schedule transaction log backups based on db activity within a particular period? or any other technique for making an educated decision ?

I'd be really grateful for any help here!

Thanks in advance.

 

[Nowell]

Hi,

I guess it depends on how many transactions will be going on in a set period of time.

how many concurrent users do you have?
how important is the data?

 

[simmolinho]

Thanks for replying Nowell,

There are approx. 50 concurrent users of the front end app and the data is v.v.important to us.

I was hoping that there woul be some kind of general rule along the lines of 'schedule a backup every "X" number of transactions' ??

 

[Nowell]

In that case log ship every ten minutes, therefore miminmising your losses.

 

[SQLBill]

The rule of thumb is how much data can you afford to lose?

Let's say you do transaction log (tl) backups every hour. At 1PM a tl backup is done, but at 145PM the database crashes and you can't do anything (can't get another tl backup). You can only restore what you've backed up. So, that means you can restore the data up to 1PM and have lost 45 minutes worth of data.

Is that acceptable? Can you afford to lose more/less?

-SQLBill

 

[simmolinho]

Thanks to both of you