Log shipping versus point in time

  • I realize that log shipping is for failover, however what happens if we would like a point in time restore?

    Say someone deletes all the data in a table and log shipping replicates before it is caught, how would you handle this?

    Log shipping has been going for a while so the backup there is old, however we regularly backup the database. We cannot do a log backup as it will cause problems for the log shipping.

    There has been talk about doing away with log shipping and starting a point in time backup process, but this means no hot failover.

    Any tips?

  • Take your last full backup, copy over all the logs that ran since that full backup (from the log shipping secondary), including one log backup that occurred after the data was deleted

    Restore full somewhere else then restore all the logs, including the last one WITH STOPAT and specify a time just before the data was deleted.

    Gail Shaw
    Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
    SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability

    We walk in the dark places no others will enter
    We stand on the bridge and no one may pass
  • Thank you! I had wondered if that was possible, but since the log shipping was not directly related to the backup, I did not know if that would work.

  • They're just log backups. There's nothing different about log backups used with log shipping than log backups you'd get from maintenance plans

    Gail Shaw
    Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
    SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability

    We walk in the dark places no others will enter
    We stand on the bridge and no one may pass
  • Thanks again. I gave it a try and it worked well. Once I deciphered what MS was saying about it in the KB article.

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