Disaster Recovery 101

© 2008 Quest Software, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Disaster Recovery 101

Brent Ozar, Quest Software

Brent Ozar

• SQL Server Expert for

Quest Software

• Former SQL DBA for

$7b company in

Hurricane Alley

• Managed >80tb SAN,

VMware

Today’s Agenda

• HA vs DR– HA Options

– DR Options

• Backup Best

Practices

• Learned the

Hard Way

• Resources

Common Backup Schedules

1. Daily fulls

2. Daily fulls, frequent t-logs

3. Weekly fulls, daily diffs, frequent t-logs

4. “What backups?”

High Availability is for: Disaster Recovery is for:

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• Replication

• Asynchronous Mirroring

• Log Shipping

• SAN Replication

• Virtualization Replication

High Availability: Disaster Recovery:

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/melancon/280076809/

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/meltedplastic/2854777253/

• Clustering

• Synchronous Mirroring

• Replication

HA: Clustering

HA: Synchronous Mirroring

Both HA, DR: Replication

DR: Asynchronous Mirroring

DR: Log Shipping

DR: SAN Replication

DR: Virtualization Replication

• Replication

• Asynchronous Mirroring

• Log Shipping

• SAN Replication

• Virtualization Replication

High Availability: Disaster Recovery:

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/melancon/280076809/

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/meltedplastic/2854777253/

• Clustering

• Synchronous Mirroring

• Replication

Brent’s Personal Favorites

Backup Best Practices

• Never back up directly to

local disk

• Back up to file share

• Back up to different SAN

• Back flat files up to tape

• Get the tapes offsite fast

• If it’s really critical, mirror

the backups

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Avoid Agents

• Lose schedule control

• Can’t gauge success

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/practicalowl/314989744/

Do Fire Drills Ahead Of Time

• Build a standalone

restore testbed

• Document how

long a restore will

take for managers

• Update it quarterly

• Trust no one

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Tale of Two Bookmark Services

http://delicious.com/brento

Worst Case Scenario

Lessons Learned

• Test your backups

• Retain your backups

• Know business value of backups

Log Shipping Lesson Learned

Production

SQL Server

Production

SQL Arrays

SAN #1 SAN #2

HA

SQL Arrays

High Availability

SQL ServerLog Shipping

Surprise!

Production

SQL Server

Production

SQL Arrays

SAN #1 SAN #2

HA

SQL Arrays

High Availability

SQL ServerLog

Shipping

File Server

Arrays

File

ServerLog

Shipping

Brent’s Role Swap of Doom

Disaster

Recovery

Datacenter

Production

Datacenter100MB connection

Data synced to DR

Brent’s Role Swap of Doom

Disaster

Recovery

Datacenter

Production

Datacenter

100MB connection

Data synced back to production

Brent’s Role Swap of Doom

Disaster

Recovery

Datacenter

Production

Datacenter

100MB connection

Data synced back to production

PLUS

Users running applications that

query the database in DR

1gb Ethernet

Brent’s Role Swap of Doom

Disaster

Recovery

Datacenter

Production

Datacenter

100MB connection

Tape

Jukeboxes

w/10 Drives

Tape

Jukeboxes

w/6 Drives

Building a Bug-Out Bag

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Personal Contents

• Power inverter

• Gadget chargers

• Clothes & toiletries

• Water & food

• Insurance papers

• Road atlas

• Flashlight

• Pillow

Work Contents

• Software installs

• License keys

• Cell data card

or Verizon MiFi

• Contact list

(updated annually)

Contact Lists

• Family

• Coworkers

• Managers

• Alternate Offices

• HW Vendors

• SW Vendors

• ISP/Colo

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Lessons Learned

• Trust, but verify

• Test, test, test

• Whiteboard your

environment

• Look for single

points of failure

• Get a bug-out bag

Resources

• Visit our SQL Server technical resource blog

at: www.sqlserverpedia.com - feel free to send

your SQL Server related technical questions to:

[email protected]

• Visit our dedicated SQL Server community

site at: http://sqlserver.quest.com

• Check out our “Backstage” area with all of our collateral and

upcoming events including our „Pain of the Week‟ webcasts:

• www.quest.com/backstage

• www.quest.com/backstage/pow.aspx