- Backup Considerations
- How Will You Verify That the Backups Are Good?
- Which Databases Should You Back Up?
- Where Should You Back Up Your Databases?
- How Often Should You Back Up Your Databases?
- How Long Should You Keep Your Backups?
- How Long Will It Take to Recover a Backup?
- Do You Have a Disaster Recovery Plan?
- Miscellaneous Tape Considerations
- About this Article
How Will You Verify That the Backups Are Good?
If a database becomes corrupt, you might still be able to back it up. However, you might not. You might not even get a warning message about the corruption. You should run some checks before backup begins, and SQL Server runs many checks internally to detect corruption (and possibly even fix it). But if you don't run the consistency checks or don't check the results first, you can't tell whether your backups are good until you attempt to restore them.
It's a really good idea to periodically test your backups by restoring one to a test server and ensuring that everything is working as expected. This way, you know whether your backups are good and can periodically test your restoration process. SQL Server 2000 includes the capability to verify the integrity of the backup after it's taken. Besides, who has ever heard of database administrators being fired because they were paranoid with their backup and recovery planning?