Backups with SQL Server

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If you have the full SQL Server, the easiest way to implement backups is to use the automated facilities called maintenance plans. To set up a maintenance plan, follow these steps:

Start SQL Server Management Studio and connect to the SQL Server instance that manages the MainBoss database.
In the left-hand panel, expand Management.
Click Maintenance Plans.
In the right-hand panel, right-click. In the resulting menu, click Maintenance Plan Wizard.
The Maintenance Plan Wizard will walk you through the process of setting up automatic backup procedures.

We do not recommend using the default save folder for the backup file, unless you set the default folder as discussed in the preceding section of this guide. SQL Server's usual default backup folder makes backup files difficult to find and work with, especially on some versions of Windows. Instead, we recommend that you save backup files in some folder that you'll remember and find easily. Also, backup files should be copied to some medium that can be removed from the premises; it's important to keep a recent backup off-site in case of fire.

Some commercial backup software packages can work with SQL Server so that SQL Server backups are included when the rest of your computer is backed up. For more information, see the documentation for your backup software.

A formal backup using SQL Server Management Studio is better than just saving the raw disk file(s) containing the database, since a raw save may leave a small amount of data unusable. However, a raw save every day is better than a formal save once a week—losing a week's worth of work is worse than losing a transaction or two.

Note: From time to time, you should check the SQL Server logs to make sure that backups really are taking place successfully. Thinkage has encountered situations where the backup software reports no problems, but where the SQL Server logs show that the database backup failed.

If you do backups directly through SQL Server Management Studio, information about the backup will not appear in MainBoss's internal database history (Administration | Database Management). Furthermore, the backup will not appear in MainBoss's list of known backups (Administration | Backups).