1. Backups for non-DBAs the Why…not the How
Kevin “I’m not Bob” Hill SQL Server DBA
(homework – follow me)

3. Who am I, and why do you care?
Finance degree, UNT 1991
7 years as a Financial Analyst
Database development and admin experience back to 1994
Have managed over 5000 SQL Server instances
Owned 3NF Consulting (2001 – 2008)
Owner DallasDBAs.com
Sr. DBA/team leader
Dad, Husband, Grandfather and Cycling enthusiast

4. While you are sitting here…

5. Your server room is on fire!
Fire suppression failed
Fire extinguishers deployed manually, fire is out.
The most important database server in your company melted
Its dripping on the storage array.
How long until you are back online?
Really?
Got proof?

6. Business Impact
What is the impact in dollars of the server you just lost?
Or the data on it?
What about losing the room?
What if the building just went toasty?
We’ll stop there and assume the city is still intact…
The more you need to protect, the more you have to put in place to protect it

7. TLAs Memorize these! RPO – Recovery Point Objective
Data Loss tolerance, usually measured in minutes
RTO – Recovery Time Objective
Downtime tolerance usually measured in minutes/hours

8. What is a backup?
Simply put, a backup is a copy of something in case the original is damaged, corrupted, lost, stolen or otherwise no longer useful.
Its an insurance policy
It is the first step in a Disaster Recovery/Business continuity solution
It is NOT a Performance or High Availability solution
It is a preventer of CLMs and RGEs

9. Why backup? Protect customer data Protect the business
Ensure peace of mind for the Customer, the CEO and the rank and file
Refresh the non-prod environments
Job Security
Service Level Agreements/Regulatory requirements
Targeted threats (hackers, ransomware)

10. Targeted Threats Hackers, using known exploits and zombie computers
Social Engineering
Stolen laptops
Employees that will click any link or open unexpected attachments (WannaCry?)
Disgruntled employee (the biggest threat on this list)

11. What needs to be backed up?
Databases of course…
Paper copies of legal documents
3-part forms (You take the pink one…)
Digital copies of spreadsheets, contracts, etc.
Its not just about the database (but a lot of it is!)
Other information stores (think s, websites…)

12. What databases should you back up?
Production
this should be a no-brainer…except in that one place…
Staging
This could be pre-prod or any number of other terms
Test/UAT
Development
Dev servers, TFS, Source control, etc.

13. SQL Server backup types
Full backup – all of the data
Differential – everything since the last full backup
Transaction Log – everything since the last log…gives you the ability to restore to a point in time

14. Which databases?
System
User
Read-only

15. Backup Frequency RPO RTO Tolerance for Data Loss
Frequency of data changes
Load on the server

16. SQL Server recovery models Now we’re getting really specific…
Full
Simple
Bulk-Logged

17. Where will you store them?
Local server
Different server
Tape, with offsite
Different data center
Different city
Azure Cloud Storage

18. “Single point of failure…”
4 of the most dreaded words to any IT worker
Hardware
Location
People
Redundancy is expensive, until your systems are down

19. Retention Considerations
Live data
Backups
Files (digital/paper)
Regulatory
“Life of the deal”
SLAs

20. Automation Backups should be happening automatically
Why pay a DBA to manually do something SQL Server will do for you?
Built-in SQL Server/Windows:
Maintenance Plans (boo, hiss…)
Central Management Server
Powershell scripts
3rd party tools:
“Ola scripts”
Red Gate
Minion

21. So you backed it all up… now what?
If you don’t test your backups, you don’t have a DR plan…you have a DR Hope.
-- some really smart guy, years ago.
-- Not me.

22. High Availability/Disaster Recovery
HA – The ability to be back online automatically(?) in a very short timeframe when there is a failure…generally measured in seconds, maybe minutes.
Clustering
Availability Groups
DR – The ability to recover from an unplanned outage
Database
Server
Building
HA and DR go hand in hand, but are NOT the same thing. They complement each other when set up correctly.

23. Would you like some “9s” with that?
9s are expensive…the more you want, the more you pay.
99% = 3.65 days of downtime per year
99.9% = 8.76 hours per year of downtime
99.99% = 52.5 minutes
99.999% = 5.25 minutes.
This is going to be a very expensive investment in redundant everything, across multiple geographic regions with automatic failover…

24. Used with permission from Brent Ozar Unlimited:

25. Story Time with Uncle Kevin
Jobs.com, 2000:
Someone boogered up the User table
Spoiler – it was a Jr. DBA named Kevin…
CCC, 2007
Someone deleted 1 row, caused a major outage
It was the customer record that generated half their revenue
Every US based airline….or so it seems
Luggage system downstream effects
Amazon Web Services S3 storage
Maintenance allowed too many servers to go offline, system took down websites all over the East Coast.

26. Thanks for coming! If you remember nothing else: RPO RTO
Backups are everyone’s responsibility
No Single points of failure!
Test your backups for validity
Create and Test your DR plan
Ringing Phone sound created by Mike Koenig/SoundBible.com