Here is one example of highly-optimized VLDB backup:

http://sqlcat.com/sqlcat/b/whitepapers/archive/2009/08/13/a-technical-case-study-fast-and-reliable-backup-and-restore-of-a-vldb-over-the-network.aspx

But, even without additional hardware costs, you may achieve significant improvements by using techniques already described (diff backup, compression...).

You may also want to...

Thanks, Uwe!

Is there any additional hardware required except camera with microphone and broadband connection?

What is the total price of remote option (both exams total)?

Paul was first to inform me the links below embedded video work. I was so used to watch embedded videos that I overlooked the links below which work. The problem...

It seems that Bob Beauchemin's MCM video on authentication and authorization is corrupted:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/gg429823.aspx

I can't watch it in any browser or player. It plays for one minute, stalls, then stops/crashes. The...

That is probably the best advice.

While you are waiting for a backup to finish, you...

Reporting on the mirror server would be fine if that mirror is a production server.

We have test server here which is not monitored, does not have SLA, failover is not...

Trasaction log in its nature can take-u space it needs rapidly, eg. 20gb in few minutes. It needs to be on a drive with enough free space for such sudden...

You do not need linked servers. Use powershell or sqlcmd to connect directly to each sql instance, query them and store results. For list of servers use textfile or central...

Post complete example (TSQL script).

Keep transaction log large enough to fit regular operations without any growth. That includes index rebuilds. You can use bulk logged mode during rebuild to minimize log size. Log growth...

Snapshot is read-only. If you want to test something other than reads, it will not work.

Snapshot might not be good to test even the reads because it is physically...

Mirror affects primary (production) server in many aspects. One of them is - your production transaction log will grow if restoring stream to mirror slows down. You do not want...

Of course you can automate that.

Make a sqlcmd script that

1) finds last full backup name and diff backup name.

2) restore them to test.

1) To find a backup name you...

No, it's not normal. You probably have filters defined that hide real info - check them.

Remove audit login, logout, and reset connection events and run the trace again.