1. Disaster Recovery and SQL for new and non-DBAs
Kevin Hill

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3. While you are sitting here…

4. Your server room is on fire!
Fire suppression failed.
Fire extinguishers deployed manually, the fire is out.
The most important database server in your company melted.
Its dripping on the storage array.
How long until you are back online?
Really?
Got proof?
Phone sound by Mike Koenig

5. Business Impact
What is the impact in dollars of the server you just lost?
Or the data on it?
What about losing the server room?
What if the building just went toasty?
We’ll stop there and assume the city is still intact. . .
The more you need to protect, the more you have to put in place to protect it

6. “Single point of failure…”
4 of the most dreaded words to any IT worker
Hardware
Location
People
Redundancy is expensive, until your systems are down

7. TLAs Memorize these! RPO – Recovery Point Objective
Data Loss tolerance, usually measured in minutes.
RTO – Recovery Time Objective
Downtime tolerance usually measured in minutes/hours.

8. What is a backup?
Simply put, a backup is a copy of something in case the original is damaged, corrupted, lost, stolen or otherwise no longer useful.
Its an insurance policy.
It is the first step in a Disaster Recovery/Business continuity solution.
It is NOT a Performance or High Availability solution.
It is a preventer of CLMs and RGEs.

9. Why backup? Protect customer data. Protect the business.
Ensure peace of mind for the Customer, the CEO and the rank and file.
Refresh the non-production environments.
Job Security.
Service Level Agreements/Regulatory requirements.
Targeted threats (hackers, ransomware, disgruntled employee…

10. What needs to be backed up?
Databases of course. . .
Paper copies of legal documents.
3-part forms (You take the pink one. . .).
Digital copies of spreadsheets, contracts, etc.
Its not just about the database (but a lot of it is!).
Other information stores (think s, websites. . .).

11. What databases should you back up?
Production
This should be a no-brainer. . .except in that one place. . .
Staging
This could be pre-production or any number of other terms.
Test/UAT
Development
Dev servers, TFS, Source control, etc.

12. Which databases? System User Read-only? Master Model MSDB Sales HR
Shipping
Read-only?

13. SQL Server recovery models Now we’re getting really specific…
Full
Allows for point-in-time recovery IF…
Simple
Point-in-time is not possible
Only last FULL or last Full+Diff can be restored
Bulk-Logged
Special Snowflake recovery model

14. SQL Server backup types
Full backup—all of the data
Differential—everything since the last full backup
Transaction Log—everything since the last log. . .gives you the ability to restore to a point in time

15. Backup Frequency RPO RTO Tolerance for Data Loss
Frequency of data changes
Load on the server

16. Where will you store them?
Local server
Different server
Tape, with offsite
Different data center
Different city
Cloud Storage

17. Retention Considerations
Backups
Files (digital/paper)
Regulatory
“Life of the deal”
SLAs

18. Automation Backups should be happening automatically
Built-in SQL Server/Windows:
Maintenance Plans (boo, hiss…)
Central Management Server
Powershell scripts
3rd party tools:
“Ola scripts”
Red Gate
Minion

19. Lets Do a Backup!
Future reference: Basic ad-hoc backup via SSMS

20. So you backed it all up… now what?
If you don’t test your backups, you don’t have a DR plan. . .you have a DR Hope.
Some really smart guy, years ago.
Not me.

21. Would you like some “9s” with that?
9s are expensive. . .the more you want, the more you pay.
99% = 3.65 days of downtime per year
99.9% = 8.76 hours per year of downtime
99.99% = 52.5 minutes
99.999% = 5.25 minutes.
This is going to be a very expensive investment in redundant everything, across multiple geographic regions with automatic failover. . .

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23. Twitter: @Kevin3NF – stalk me 
Thanks for coming and PLEASE fill out a speaker evaluation form…help me get better at this for the next group!
Kevin Hill
– stalk me 