Database Snapshots

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Database Snapshots

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Raghu Pyapili

Posted Wednesday, December 17, 2008 9:30 PM

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Comments posted to this topic are about the item Database Snapshots

Post #621766

DavidSimpson

Posted Wednesday, December 17, 2008 9:43 PM

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Good question. Unfortunately SQL Server 2005 SP2 does not ignore database snapshots when selecting the "all databases" option in the backup task in a maintenance plan. Seems to be a bit of an oversight on MS part and pain in ours. Crazy

Maybe this will be fixed in SP3. Hopefully at least one of the many third-party backup vendors figured out you cannot backup snapshots.

David

Post #621768

clementhuge

Posted Thursday, December 18, 2008 4:24 AM

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The no backup solution was obvious but I do not understand why you cannot take another snapshop, to cancel all changes.

Clement

Post #621906

jdshabat

Posted Thursday, December 18, 2008 5:36 AM

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I agree. I know you can't backup snapshots, but then why wouldn't you take another snapshot so that it is fresher than an older snapshot with a fuller sparse file?

Post #621964

Randy-574768

Posted Thursday, December 18, 2008 5:50 AM

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Me too - why not take another snapshot?

Randy

Post #621972

jdshabat

Posted Thursday, December 18, 2008 5:58 AM

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Yes, this is another wonderful trick question that we'll have to deal with in everyday life as a DBA.
Perhaps, in some countries, where there are 100 million Oracle DBAs and 120 million SQL DBAs, then people have to trick each other to see who really knows his/her stuff, as everyone is a DBA looking for a job and employers have to ask really tough questions.

How many more questions are we going to see like this? It helps no one.

Post #621981

clementhuge

Posted Thursday, December 18, 2008 6:27 AM

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I agree. Be more practical on the questions.

Clement

Post #621996

Brian LeBlanc-449582

Posted Thursday, December 18, 2008 6:39 AM

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The premise of the question seemed to be “how to reduce the size of the snapshot?” and the answer is – Take another snapshot. I agree this is a crappy question…If a DBA came up to this scenario and was asked to reduce the size of the snapshop file by doing a backup and he replied “you can’t backup a Snapshot” and walked away, I would fire them. I would expect the DBA to say “I’ll take care of it” and do another snapshot to reduce the size.

Brian RL: Be serious about your work, but do not take yourself too seriously {Philip A. Fisher}

Post #622004

Jason Shadonix

Posted Thursday, December 18, 2008 6:45 AM

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I would argue that a snapshot is a form of backup. I realize it can't be used if the source database is physically gone, but you can revert from it if you accidentally change/delete data.

If you really are running in to disk space issues because of a snapshot being too large, the best (and only) think you can do is drop and recreate that snapshot. Taking no backup won't solve anything.

Jason Shadonix
MCTS, SQL 2005

Post #622014

Steven Cameron

Posted Thursday, December 18, 2008 7:24 AM

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Although the question mentions that the snapshot will grow quickly, there is no mention of trying to shrink the size of the snapshot or running out of disk space. It asks what kind of backup is best for a snapshot database.

You might think that this kind of 'trick question' doesn't help anyone, but I would hope that it would help the 79% (at the time of this comment) of the people who got this question wrong.

Post #622061

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