Host-based backup of VMware vSphere VMs.
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pkelly_sts
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Copy-only TL backups of a SQL server?

Post by pkelly_sts »

Apologies I don't have hands-on the environment to have a test/play myself (new client/deployment, not yet built, starting end of the week) but I'm trying to understand options for SQL backups as I haven't played with them for over a year.

The SQL admin is typical traditional & insisting on Veeam doing copy-only backups of SQL servers with his preferred primary means of restore being native SQL backups to a share etc. (I'll work on him once I get it installed ;-)) What I can't remember is, in copy-only mode, are TL backups (without truncation) still an option for Veeam?

I've been stating all along for this deployment that we'll be able to do up-to-the-transaction restores if required (even though I've found it rarely used in practical terms) but I fear this won't be the case here & I'll only be able to do "semi-dumb" incremental copy-only backups until I can persuade him to come to the dark side. Am I correct?

TIA!
PetrM
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Re: Copy-only TL backups of a SQL server?

Post by PetrM »

Hi Paul,

There is no option to backup transaction logs by Veeam after doing SQL backup using copy only mode.
The transactional restore will not be available without transaction logs backups neither.

The purpose of "'copy only" mode is to create independent backup and preserve LSN and backup time of the existing backup chain created by 3rd party tool or by SQL itself.
It's recommended only for such cases when SQL dba is supposed to handle entire backup and restore process on his own and Veeam just performs backup at the level of VM.
However, in this case you shouldn't have any specific (f.e. "up-to-the-transaction") requirements for db restore via Veeam.
If you want to have transaction-specific restores available in Veeam - transaction log backup job is a way to go.

Thanks!
pkelly_sts
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Re: Copy-only TL backups of a SQL server?

Post by pkelly_sts » 1 person likes this post

Thanks for confirming my suspicion Petr, my aim is to persuade him to switch to Veeam backups (I wanted to get it up & running to demo the process for him) so we'll just have to state that we can only offer application-aware backups with Veeam at this point - I will be pointing out to him that copying his monolithic SQL-native backups off-site will be a challenge, I was originally planning to use Veeam efficiencies to achieve it.

Thanks again!
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