SQL Server interview questions & Answers Set 2

How to get the automatic backup of the database in the SQL server?

This how to will show you to how to create a maintenance plan that will automatically backup all MS SQL server 2000 databases at a specified time and will also automatically add any new databases you create.

The original instructions were kindly supplied in pseudo format by Paul Banks, I've just tidied them up a little

1 - Open Enterprise Manager on your SQL server machine

2 - Expand the console tree by selecting Microsoft SQL servers > SQL Server Group > Your SQL Server > Management

3 - Right click Database Maintenance Plans and select "New Maintenance Plan"

4 - When the wizard opens, click Next and select the "All Databases" option. Click Next

5 - Skip the next two stages of the wizard by clicking Next unless you want to rebuild indexes (Not recommended for a large number of databases)

6 - Make sure the options "Back up the database as part of a maintenance plan is checked and also "Verify the integrity of the backup when complete"

7 - Set a schedule up for the plan it run, daily in the very early hours is probably best and click Next

8 - Select the location for the backups, either the default on somewhere on your server

9 - Check the option for "Create a sub-directory for each database"

10 - Set the length of time that you wish to retain backups

11 - Leave the extension as BAK and click Next

12 - There's no real need to back up the transaction logs unless you want to at the next stage so click Next

13 - Check the option to Write a report to a text file as this is handy for diagnosing any problems with the plan and set the retention time for the logs. Click Next.

14 - You can write the history to a DB table but this is not necessary, click Next

15 - Check the summary, give the maintenance plan a name and click Finish

At this stage you may get a warning about the SQL Server Agent not running. If you do, click OK to clear the message, right click SQL Server Agent and click Start.

NB: SQL Server Agent is set-up as a manual starting service so you may want to go to Start > Run > services.msc, select the SQLSERVERAGENT service and change the startup mode to Automatic.

Now that you have created your maintenance plan, it's a good idea to check it actually works so select Jobs below SQL Server agent.

You should see the plan you have created so just right click the job and select Start Job. The maintenance plan should then run and finish with Succeeded under the Last Run Status column.

Finally browse to the location you chose in step 8 and check that you have a sub directory for each database and a BAK file for the database backup.

And that's it! You are now backing up all your databases and including new ones as they area created. You should now include this folder as part opf your normal disk backup.