Andy,
Great article! I especially like the fact you pointed out what happens when the backup fails on part of the mirror, and I'd echo your sentiments... be good if there was a switch to continue the process.
I currently use a disk to disk to DVD solution at my client's location, it works for them, but the amount data isn't too terribly large.
Mark
Good article, great feature with a fatal flaw!
We've been using DeltaCopy http://www.aboutmyip.com/AboutMyXApp/DeltaCopy.jsp to mirror backups. It's particularly good for WAN backups if not much has changed as it uses very little bandwidth. It can be easily scheduled and will send email reports.
Malcolm
Thanks for the great article! Another item I would like to see is doing the mirror for both disk and tape not disk/disk and tape/tape.
JG
Nice bit of knowledge. My issue would be that there are other factors that could affect the performance of the backup - especially network latency. We should keep this in mind when using database backup mirroring. Also, the database size was relatively small in the sample shown. I'd like to see performance of a larger database backup, and to see what the network latency would then be for other applications going over the same LAN during tha mirrored backup process.
Great article. It's nice to see some basic new features every once in a while.
Unfortunately, I presume that the fault of an all or nothing backup will make this too risky for most shops to use. In ours, if it's not on tape and off-site, it's not a successful backup. Even if I have the local copy.
I've stuck with the traditional copy/ftp method, but use SQL Backup from Red Gate to accomplish it. They have gone ahead and incorporated the CopyTo command inline with the backup command, making it very easy to set up a job to backup to several locations consecutively.
I just checked their new version 5 help file, and apparently they have also included a MirrorFile option that allows up to 32 mirror locations. However, according to the documentation, they will continue with the backup even if only one of the locations specified works.
Add compression, encryption, and faster backup and restore speed, and the native Backup for SQL Server just doesn't have a chance to be used by me.
You can go here to review the help file online, if curious: (No, I don't have stock in them. For some reason, I get accused of that a lot. Besides, I'm sure the new site owners won't mind.)
http://help.red-gate.com/help/SQLBackup5/0/en/SQLBackup.htm
Keep up the good work, and I hopefully I'll see you in your classroom sometime soon.
Dan
