SQL interview questions on database backups, restores and recovery – Part I

https://www.sqlshack.com/sql-interview-questions-on-database-backups-restores-and-recovery-part-i/

So far, we’ve discussed a lot about database backup-and-restore process. The backup database command is an online database copy of the SQL Server
database and restore database command gives an option to test the consistency and integrity of the backup file.

As we all know, the backup database command bound with many database options. Indeed, it facilitates the execution of specific backup database command
that meets the business requirement.

The backup database is further classified into two preliminary backup types

1. Backup Database
2. Backup Log

Each of the above types defines the type of data.

Let’s deep dive and review each of the database backup command topics to get a better understanding of what it is all about. In this article, we will find an
answer for FAQs about the SQL Server database backup. We will learn more about database backup.

1. Why are database backups so important?

2. What is a SQL Server database backup?
3. What are different types of database backups?
4. What is a database recovery model?
5. How can I check the recovery model of the database?
6. How can I change the recovery model?
7. What is a full database backup?
8. How can I create a compressed backup on a newly formatted backup file?
9. How can I overwrite to an existing backup file?
10. How can I append backup sets in SQL Server database?
11. How can I get Files and Filegroup information in SQL Server?
12. What are system stored procedures that provide database information?
13. What is a Differential backup?
14. What are T-Log backups and How can I create T-log (Transaction-log) backups?
15. What is a Tail-log backup?
16. What is a Copy-only backup?
17. What is a mirror backup?
18. What is a Partial database backup?
19. What is a Striped (Split) database backup in SQL Server?
20. What is a file and filegroup backup?
21. How can I set expiration dates for backups?
22. How can I retain backup for a specific number of days?
23. How can I encrypt a database backup using certificate?
24. What is the difference between FULL, Bulk-Logged and Simple recovery models?
25. What are system databases?

1. Why are database backups so important?

They is so important because of following reasons:

 Data is always the target and remain vulnerable for various threats
 Un-reliable on hardware and software programs
 Importance of the data
 Critical downtime
 It all depends on the amount of time it takes to redo the work. If it’s minor; then it can be ignored. If this is a major data loss, it may take several
business days and it could feasibly end up in a heavy loss for the organization.

2. What is a SQL Server database backup?

A Backup is a process to create a copy of data and it can be used to reconstruct the data in case of any failures.

Backing up your SQL Server databases, running test restores procedures on your backups, and storing copies of backups in a safe, on-site, off-site, and cloud
location protects and safeguard the data from potentially catastrophic or various types of data loss.
3. What are different types of database backups?

The following are the different types of SQL Server database backups.

 Full
 Differential
 Transactional Log(T-Log)
 Copy-Only
 File
 FileGroup
 Partial
 Mirror

The type of a database backup depends on the database recovery model of the database.

4. What is a database recovery model?

The Recovery Model is a property of a database that controls how the transactions are logged.

The design of entire database and recovery procedures based on the context of the recovery model of the database.

It controls and manages each transaction scope into its entirety. You can refer to it here

5. How can I check the recovery model of the database?

In the following example, query the sys.databases catalog view the recovery model of the all the databases

SELECT name, recovery_model_desc FROM sys.databases;

6. How can I change the recovery model?

The following example, the recovery model of the model database is set to FULL using the SET RECOVERY option of the ALTER DATABASE statement.

ALTER DATABASE model SET RECOVERY FULL

What permission is required to take a database backup?

By default to members of the sysadmin fixed server role and the db_owner and db_backupoperator fixed database roles.

7. What is a full database backup?

In this backup type, the whole database is backed up. This is the base for any type of backups. In order to have further differential or transaction log backups,
you must create the full database backup.

BACKUP DATABASE PowerSQL TO DISK='f:\PowerSQL\PowerSQL_FULL.BAK'

How can I find the progress of percentage completion of the database backup?

Use the keyword STATS in the T-SQL to monitor backup progress status. This can also be used with restore command to measure the progress.
BACKUP DATABASE PowerSQL TO DISK='f:\PowerSQL\PowerSQL_FULL.BAK' WITH STATS

8. How can I create a compressed backup on a newly formatted backup file?

Use the keyword FORMAT and COMPRESSION to format and compress the database backup.

BACKUP DATABASE PowerSQL TO DISK='f:\PowerSQL\PowerSQL_FULL.BAK'

WITH STATS,FORMAT, COMPRESSION;

9. How can I overwrite to an existing backup file?

On specifying the INIT keyword, all the backup sets are overwritten.

BACKUP DATABASE PowerSQL TO DISK='f:\PowerSQL\PowerSQL_FULL.BAK'

WITH STATS,INIT

10. How can I append backup sets in SQL Server database?

By default, the NOINIT option is enabled. It means that the backup will append to other backups in the file

BACKUP DATABASE PowerSQL TO DISK='f:\PowerSQL\PowerSQL_FULL.BAK'

WITH STATS, NOINIT

OR

BACKUP DATABASE PowerSQL TO DISK='f:\PowerSQL\PowerSQL_FULL.BAK'

11. How can I get Files and Filegroup information in SQL Server?

You can query the sys,filegroups joined with sys. databases_files to get the filegroup related information.

SELECT

dbf.name AS filename,

dbf.size/128 AS FileSizeMB,

dfg.name AS FGName,

dfg.type_desc,

dbf.physical_name AS Physicalpath

FROM
 sys.database_files AS dbf

INNER JOIN sys.filegroups AS dfg

ON

dbf.data_space_id = dfg.data_space_id

12. What are system stored procedures that provide database information?

The following the system stored procedures:

 sp_helpdb
 sp_helpfile
 sp_helpfilegroup

sp_helpdb ‘PowerSQL’

On specifying the database name, it displays the database information along with the list all the files and related filegroup of the database

sp_helpfile

sp_helpfile is a subset of sp_helpdb and it returns files, filegroup, and their properties.

sp_helpfile PowerSQL_1

On specifying the parameter, the file, it will list the details of that specified file and associated details.

sp_helpfilegroup

sp_helpfilegroup lists all the filegroups and number of associated data files in each filegroup.

On specifying the filegroup, the output lists the specific filegroup and associated data file details.

13. What is a Differential backup?

A Differential backup is also a type of SQL Server database backup where it copies all the data that has changed since the last full backup.

BACKUP DATABASE PowerSQL TO DISK = N'f:\PowerSQL\PowerSQL_Diff.BAK' WITH DIFFERENTIAL

14. What are T-Log backups and How can I create T-log (Transaction-log) backups?

The transaction log records every modification made to the databases. The records are maintained in such a way that the system can be brought to a
consistent state at any point of time with minimal or no data loss.

For T-Log backup, the full backup is the base. It takes complete log file data to write to a backup file.

The transaction log backup depends on the database recovery model and it’s relevant for the databases that are using the full or bulk-logged recovery models.

To execute the BACKUP LOG statement to back up the transaction log, specify the database name and backup device
BACKUP LOG PowerSQL TO DISK=N'f:\PowerSQL\PowerSQL_tlog.trc'

How can I continue the database backup processes despite they encounter an error?

It’s basically overriding the default behavior of database backup process using CONTINUE_AFTER_ERROR. On error, the backup process will stop the process.

BACKUP DATABASE PowerSQL TO DISK = N'f:\PowerSQL\PowerSQL_Diff.BAK' WITH CHECKSUM,

CONTINUE_AFTER_ERROR,STATS, FORMAT, COMPRESSION

15. What is a Tail-log backup?

In case of failure, it is required to start the recovery process, the first and foremost important step is intended to ensure take care of tail part of the transaction
before starting the restoration process is called tail-log backup.

WITH CONTINUE_AFTER_ERROR keyword, the SQL Server will override the default behavior even though it’s generating an error to complete the backup
process.

USE MASTER

GO

BACKUP LOG PowerSQL TO DISK=N'f:\PowerSQL\PowerSQL_tlog.trc' WITH CHECKSUM, CONTINUE_AFTER_ERROR,STATS

16. What is a Copy-only backup?

It’s a special type of backup. It is independent of the conventional backups and it will not have an impact on the overall backup process.

In simple words, it is used to create a full database or transaction log backup without breaking the log chain

BACKUP DATABASE PowerSQL TO DISK = N'f:\PowerSQL\PowerSQL_Diff.BAK' WITH COPY_ONLY,STATS, FORMAT,

COMPRESSION

17. What is a mirror backup?

In some cases, it is required to create multiple copies of data into different files. You can create a maximum of three mirror copies of the data at a time.

BACKUP DATABASE PowerSQL

TO DISK = 'F:\PowerSQL\PowerSQL.BAK'

MIRROR TO DISK = 'F:\PowerSQL\PowerSQL_1.BAK'

MIRROR TO DISK = 'F:\PowerSQL\PowerSQL_2.BAK'

WITH FORMAT, COMPRESSION, STATs

GO
18. What is a Partial database backup?

Partial database backup is one of the rarely used backup methods. All though it works with all recovery models, it is basically designed for simple database
recovery model database. This provides flexibility for backing up only READ_WRITE_FILEGROUPS.

BACKUP DATABASE PowerSQL READ_WRITE_FILEGROUPS TO DISK = N'f:\PowerSQL\PowerSQL_Diff.BAK'

WITH COPY_ONLY,STATS, FORMAT, COMPRESSION

19. What is a Striped (Split) database backup in SQL Server?

This type of backup is mainly used where there is an issue with storage space.

In this type of database backup, the data will be split into parts and can be very useful during space constraints. Striped backup is a process of taking backup
to different locations.

BACKUP DATABASE PowerSQL

TO DISK = 'F:\PowerSQL\PowerSQL.BAK',

DISK = 'F:\PowerSQL\PowerSQL_1.BAK',

DISK = 'F:\PowerSQL\PowerSQL_2.BAK'

WITH FORMAT, COMPRESSION, STATS=10

20. What is a file and filegroup backup?

Every SQL Server database must have a minimum of a data file and a log file. We can also create more than one files and it can be grouped together in
filegroups for easier file management and administration purpose.

Using this method, the desired file\file group backup is possible

File Backup

Syntax: BACKUP DATABASE [DBNAME] FILE = N’FILENAME’ TO DISK = N’Path’

BACKUP DATABASE PowerSQL FILE = N'PowerSQL_Index' TO DISK = N'F:\PowerSQL\PowerSQL_Index.BAK'

File Group Backup:

Syntax: BACKUP DATABASE [DBNAME] Filegroup = N’Filegroup Name’ TO DISK = N’Path’

BACKUP DATABASE PowerSQL

Filegroup = N'PRIMARY',

Filegroup = N'SalesInMemFG' TO DISK = N'F:\PowerSQL\PowerSQL_PRIMARYFG.BAK'

WITH FORMAT, STATS

21. How can I set expiration dates for backups?

If you want the backup to expire, use WITH EXPIREDATE clause option in the backup database T-SQL. The following example shows How can I back up with an
expiration date on Jun 28, 2018:

BACKUP DATABASE PowerSQL TO DISK = N'F:\PowerSQL\PowerSQL_PRIMARYFG.BAK' WITH EXPIREDATE = N'08/28/2018

00:00:00'

22. How can I retain backup for a specific number of days?

If you want to retain the backup for the only specific number of days then use the WITH RETAINDAYS clause with the database backup command.

BACKUP DATABASE PowerSQL TO DISK = N'F:\PowerSQL\PowerSQL.BAK' WITH RETAINDAYS = 3 , FORMAT, STATS=10

23. How can I encrypt a database backup using certificate?

 Create master Key

 Create certificate B
 Backup the database

USE MASTER

GO

CREATE MASTER KEY ENCRYPTION BY PASSWORD = 'PowerSQL$2018'

CREATE CERTIFICATE BackupServerCert WITH SUBJECT = 'Backup certificate'

BACKUP DATABASE PowerSQL TO DISK = N'F:\PowerSQL\PowerSQL.BAK'

WITH FORMAT,

ENCRYPTION

ALGORITHM = AES_256,

SERVER CERTIFICATE = BackupServerCert

),

STATS = 10

GO

See Also,

Understanding Database Backup Encryption in SQL Server

24. What is the difference between FULL, Bulk-Logged and Simple recovery models?
FULL BULK LOGGED SIMPLE

All, but minimal log for few operations such as bulk

operations(bcp, BULK INSERT) Select into, Create index, alter

Log level All index, drop index, updatetext, and writetext Minimal

During Every time Checkpoint

Log Truncation backup background run against the

Process (LTP) Life process During backup process database

Can it use for

Production

Server? Yes Depends – Yes/No Depends – Yes/No

Point-in-time

recovery Yes No No

Log backup

support Yes No

Yes

Piecemeal Restore Yes Yes Yes

Log Shipping

Support Yes Yes No

Database

Mirroring Support Yes No No

Database

Replication

Support Yes Yes Yes

25. What are system databases?

System databases are an essential component of SQL Server engine for the functioning of a server instance. The system databases are critical as it stores meta-
data of the user-defined databases. It must be backed up after every significant update as we do it for user-defined databases. The system databases that you
must always back up include msdb, master, model and configuration databases.

System database Description Backup?

Recovery
 model

master The database is used to record all of the system level information Yes Simple

User

model Yes configurable*

It’s a template for all databases.

It is used by SQL Server Agent for job management and it also stores a history

msdb of every backup and restore operations Yes Simple (default)

A read-only database that contains copies of all system objects that ship with

Resource SQL Server No —

tempdb A workspace for SQL Server No Simple

Configure

Distribution Configuration database for replication Yes Simple

SQL interview questions on database backups, restores and recovery – Part II

https://www.sqlshack.com/sql-interview-questions-on-database-backups-restores-and-recovery-part-ii/

In this article, we’ll walk through, some of the refined list of SQL Server backup-and-restore, (or recovery) interview Q&A. Also, it includes the high-level
overview and links of the “stairway to backup-and-restore series” articles for detailed information. As you read through the lists of Q&A, you’ll learn most of
the features and concepts of Backup-and-Restore operations.

In this article, we’ll discuss the following topics:

1. What are database backups?

2. What are factors to consider while planning for backup, restore, and recovery strategy?
3. What are different stages of data life-cycle management?
4. How to do plan or setup SQL Server Backup and Restore strategy in a multi-server environment using native tools?
5. How does the database recovery model impact database backups?
6. Explain the different types of database backup in SQL Server?/a>
7. How can I verify that backups are occurring on a daily basis?
8. What is the difference between Database backup and Database snapshots?
9. What are the system tables that store backup and restore related information?
10. What are the new enhancements added for Backup and Restore SQL Server 2017?
11. What is a smart T-Log backup in SQL Server 2017?
12. Assume that the database recovery model is full. The full database backup runs every week at 9 PM. Sunday, differential backup runs daily at 9 PM.
Monday to Saturday, and hourly transaction log backups. Now, database crashed on Friday 5:10 PM. How to do a point-in-time recovery of the
database?
13. How to do database refresh automation?
14. Explain the process of database backup and restore operations using the Cloud?
15. In a given situation, assume that the system has 3 drives with 30 GB of free space on each drive. Now, how can you perform a database backup for
80 GB database?. Is it possible?
16. Explain piecemeal restore operation?
17. What are database recovery phases and how it is different for in-memory optimized objects?
18. How to perform database backup and restore operation on SQL Server Docker containers?
19. What are the native toolset that are available to perform database backup and restore operation?
20. What are the top 10 trace flags can be used with database backup?
1. What are database backups?

The word “backup” refers to copying and archiving the data so that it may be used to restore in case of an event of data loss. In general, you should back up
any work or data that can’t be replaced easily.

A database backup is a copy of data from the database, which can be used to reconstruct the data. A database backup is a process to protect the data from
various disasters. Disasters cannot be completely prevented; the least we can do is to ensure we have everything that’s needed to get up and running as soon
as we can.

An overview of the process of SQL Server backup-and-restore

2. What are factors to consider while planning for backup, restore, and recovery
strategy?

It’s a broad topic to discuss but, some of the high-level points to be considered while defining good backup strategy include the following topics:

 Rate or frequency at which data changes

 Measure the volume of online transaction processing
 Measure the frequency of the schema or structural design changes
 Measure the frequency of database configuration change
 Understand data generation and data loading patterns
 Know the nature of the data

For additional information: refer to the below link

Backup and Restore (or Recovery) strategies for SQL Server database

3. What are different stages of data life-cycle management?

It’s important for any database administrator to understand the data lifecycle and the nature of the particular business, in order to have the ability to recover
artifacts of business value from any sort of data disruptions.

 Data capture or generation

 Data usage
 Data corruption
 Data corruption prevention
 Data protection
 Data archival
 Data purging
 Data retention

For additional information: refer to the below link

Understanding the SQL Server Data Management Life Cycle

4. How to do plan or setup SQL Server Backup and Restore strategy in a multi-server
environment using native tools?

In some cases, as part of company acquisition process, we may lead to revisit the review the existing the plans or we may also need to run through the steps to
measure the current process. It is always advised to understand the importance and implication of business requirements. As each database may have different
requirements based on the application it serves. The requirements may be based on:

 How frequently does the application access the database? Is there a specific off-peak period when the backups can be scheduled?
 How frequently does the data get changed? If the changes are too frequent, you may want to schedule incremental backups in between full
backups. Differential backups also reduce the restoration time.
 If only a small part of a large database changes frequently, partial and/or file backups can be used.
  Estimate the size of a full backup. Usually, the backup is smaller than the database itself, because it does not record the unused space in a database.

PowerShell comes into the rescue for most of the DBAs. It is really that simple enough to design to gather backup information with few lines of code.

For additional information: refer to the below link

Planning a SQL Server Backup and Restore strategy in a multi-server environment using PowerShell and T-SQL

5. How does the database recovery model impact database backups?

Database recovery model is the database configuration determines the type of database backup one could initiate on the database. It defines the state of the
entries in the in transaction log files. Also, it provides the ways to restore or recover the database based on the configuration from varieties of failure.

SQL Server database recovery models:

 SIMPLE
 FULL
 Differential

For additional information: refer to the below link.

Understanding SQL Server database recovery models

6. Explain the different types of database backup in SQL Server?

The most common types of backups available in SQL Server:

 Full
 Differential
 Transaction log
 Tail Log backup

There are other backup types available as well:

 Copy-only backup
 File backups
 Partial backups.

For additional information: refer to the below link

Understanding SQL Server Backup Types

7. How can I verify that backups are occurring on a daily basis?

You could rely on database backup reports. In general, database administrators are very much concerned with getting the database backup report on a daily
basis and also alerts as per the Service Level Agreement. It’s considered as a prime role of DBAs to rely on the backup report to understand and how the
backups are running.

The reports can be generated in many ways

 PowerShell scripts can be used to review the SQL Server error logs for backup failure events for the specific event id 18204,18210,3009,3017,3033,
and 3021
 Use T-SQL to query msdb.dbo.backupset for the backup information
 PowerShell SMO library to pull the related backup information

For additional information: refer to the below link

SQL Server Database Backup and Restore reports

8. What is the difference between Database backup and Database snapshots?

The database snapshots are directly dependent on the source structure of the database. Therefore, snapshots can never be a substitute for backup-and-restore
strategy. For instance, if an entire database is lost or corrupted, it means, the source files become inconsistent. If the source files are unavailable, snapshots
cannot refer to them, and so, snapshot restoration would be impossible.

For additional information, refer to the below link

Understanding Database snapshots vs Database backups in SQL Server

9. What are the system tables that store backup and restore related information?

The MSDB database in-house several system tables that stores all the information related to the backup-and-restore operation. You can query the following
system tables for finding backup-and-restore information.

 backupfile – Store information about all the backup of the data file or log file
 backupfilegroup -This gives an information about all the backed up filegroups
 backupmediafamily – Stores information about each media family
 backupmediaset – Stores information about each backup media set
 backupset – Stores information about each backup set
 restorefile – Stores information about each restored file
 restorefilegroup – Stores information about each restored filegroup
 restorehistory – Stores information about each restore operation

For additional information; refer to the below link

Backup and Restore (or Recovery) strategies for SQL Server database

10. What are the new enhancements added for Backup and Restore SQL Server 2017?

SQL Server 2017, the enhanced the DMV’s and DMF’s which facilitates an extra column to measure the modified extents in a simpler way.

DCM (Differential Changed Map) tracks and tells what pages are changed since the last full backup. The values could be leveraged to determine if you need to
initiate a full or differential backup.

For more information, refer to the below link

Smart database backups in SQL Server 2017

11. What is a smart T-Log backup in SQL Server 2017?

In SQL Server 2017, enhancement has been made to the sys.dm_db_log_stats dynamic management function. This function returns a
column log_since_last_log_backup_mb. Now, you have a better control the transactional log backup based on the amount of the data that has changed since
last transactional log backup.

For more information, refer to the below link

Smart database backups in SQL Server 2017

12. Assume that the database recovery model is full. The full database backup runs
every week at 9 PM. Sunday, differential backup runs daily at 9 PM. Monday to
Saturday, and hourly transaction log backups. Now, database crashed on Friday 5:10
PM. How to do a point-in-time recovery of the database?

Yes, the point-in-time recovery is possible.

 First, initiate a tail log backup

 Now, restore recent Full database backup with NORECOVERY, i.e.is. Sunday 9 PM backup
 Apply the Thursday night differential backup with NORECOVERY, i.e.is Thursday 9 PM. Differential backup
 Next, Apply all the T-Log backups since Thursday Differential backup with NORECOVERY option
 Apply tail-log backup WITH RECOVERY and STOPAT options

For additional information, refer to the below link

Tail-Log Backup and Restore in SQL Server

13. How to do database refresh automation?

This can be done using several of the following available techniques:

 Sqlcmd, Robocopy utility, and T-SQL

For more information, see the below article

Discussing Backup and Restore Automation using SQLCMD and SQL Server agent

 PowerShell

For more information, see the below article

Backup Linux SQL Server databases using PowerShell and Windows task scheduler

 Sqlpackage.exe tool

For more information, see the below article

SqlPackage.exe – Automate SQL Server Database Restoration using bacpac with PowerShell or Batch techniques

14. Explain the process of database backup and restore operations using the Cloud?

The backup-to-cloud functionality was added in SQL Server 2012. In general, backup and restore functionality to and from the cloud are similar to using disk or
tape, with very few differences. SQL Server database Backup to Azure Blob Storage is a process designed to perform almost like a backup device, such as disk
or tape. During the backup or restore process, a URL is selected as a “device type” which in turn triggers a VDI (Virtual Backup Device Interface) client process.
The process acts as an intermediary agent to send the database backup to the Azure Blob Storage.

For more information, refer the below link

SQL Server Database Backup and Restore operations using the Cloud
15. In a given situation, assume that the system has 3 drives with 30 GB of free space
on each drive. Now, how can you perform a database backup for 80 GB database?. Is
it possible?

Yes, it is possible.

In some instances, we’re limited by the amount of space on the drives. What if we wanted to backup an entire database that is huge? Or what if we have to
copy the backup files over the network? It might be a good idea in these cases to split the backup into smaller chunks—each being a separate file.

For more information, refer to the below link

Understanding SQL Server Backup Types

16. Explain piecemeal restore operation?

Piecemeal restore helps with databases that contain multiple file-groups to be restored and recovered at multiple stages. This would give an option to
customize the backup and restore (or recovery) solution.

Consider a scenario; where we have a database with 3 file-groups, Primary, read-only and read-write file-groups. We actually need not perform backup for
read-only file groups, here we can perform partial backups. We need to have a single backup copy of the read-only file-groups. Using the piecemeal process,
we do have the option to restore required file groups but not all of the file groups are required to make the database online at a specific instance. It is always
required to restore the primary filegroup but any secondary user-defined file groups are optional, at that point, while doing the restore. After the restore, one
could get partial data and it’s available online and for the rest of the data, the users can wait, for a period of time, to recover other file-groups.

Database Filegroup(s) and Piecemeal restores in SQL Server

17. What are database recovery phases and how it is different for in-memory
optimized objects?

Database Recovery Phases

When SQL Server instances restart, each database goes through different recovery stages.

The different phases are:

 Analysis
 Redo
 Undo

Analysis: In this phase, the transaction log is analyzed to track the information about the last checkpoint and create the Dirty Page Table (DPT); this captures
all the dirty-page details. In In-Memory OLTP engine, the analysis phase identifies the checkpoint inventory and prepares the system table with all the log
entries and also its processes the associated file allocation log records

Redo: It’s a roll-forward phase. When this phase completes, the database comes online.

Here are the points to ponder:

 For disk-based tables, the database is moved to the current point-in-time and acquires locks taken by uncommitted transactions.
 For memory-optimized tables, data from the data and delta file pairs are loaded into the memory and then update the data with the active
transaction-log based on the last durable checkpoint. During this phase, disk and memory-optimized based object recovery run concurrently.
 In SQL Server 2017, the redo phase of the memory-optimized tables (the associated data and delta files) is done in parallel. This injects faster times
for database recovery process.
 When the above operations are completed for both disk-based and memory-optimized tables, the database becomes online and available for
access.
Undo: It’s a rollback phase. It holds the list of the active transaction from the analysis phase basically undoing the transactions. This phase is not needed for
memory-optimized tables since In-Memory OLTP doesn’t record any uncommitted transactions for memory-optimized tables.

For additional information, refer to the below link

SQL Server Database Recovery Process Internals – database STARTUP Command

For memory-optimized databases, refer the below link

Backup and Restore of a SQL Server database with Memory-Optimized objects TBA

18. How to perform database backup and restore operation on SQL Server Docker
containers?

As long as the containers remain intact with the host, the data will remain safe even if the container is stopped or restarted. However, if you remove the
container your databases get removed with it and it’ll be gone forever.

Let’s discuss the Ducker’s solution that keeps the data safe across containers. Using Docker data volume (-v) option, it is that simple to share the data. During
the SQL Server container creation process, map to the SQL Server database file directory using –v parameter.

For additional information, refer the below link

Backup and Restore using SQL Server Docker Containers TBA

19. What are the native toolset that are available to perform database backup and
restore operation?

a. SSMS
b. Sqlcmd – Discussing Backup and Restore Automation using SQLCMD and SQL Server agent
c. Sqlpackage.exe – SqlPackage.exe – Automate SQL Server Database Restoration using bacpac with PowerShell or Batch techniques
d. SQL Ops Studio – Backup and Restore operations using SQL Ops Studio TBA
e. PowerShell – Backup Linux SQL Server databases using PowerShell and Windows task scheduler

20. What are the top 10 trace flags can be used with database backup?

When used the following traceflags with 3605 traceflag, the output message to the errorlog.

 1806 – Turn off Instant-file-initialization

 3004 – Logs every step of backup/restore internal operation.
 3213 – Display the buffer and maxtransfersize information
 3023 – Enables CHECKSUM option for the BACKUP command
 3226 – Prevent log backup entries written into the errorlog
 3001 – Prevent log backup entries written into the MSDB tables.
 3014 – Log more internal information for every backup operation
 3042 – Bypasses the default backup compression pre-allocation algorithm
 3051 – Enables database backup to URL logging
 3608 – Prevents SQL Server from automatically starting and recovering any database except the master database

SQL interview questions on database backups, restores and recovery – Part III
https://www.sqlshack.com/sql-interview-questions-on-database-backups-restores-and-recovery-part-iii/

So far, we’ve discussed a lot about database backup commands. In this article, we’ll discuss more on database restore or database recovery processes. When
you initiate a restore process, it undergoes a series of internal stages to restore or recover the data to the specific point of time.
Introduction

In this article, you’ll see the FAQs and answers about the database restore and recovery internals. To learn a lot about SQL Server database backup-and-restore
(recovery) internals, you can refer the full list of topics at the bottom.

In this article, we’ll answer the following topics.

1. Define database restore

2. Define the database recovery process
3. Check the state of the backup file
4. Check the number of file(s) in a backup file
5. Identify the database version from a backup file
6. Check the backup software tools used for backup
7. Perform simple and multiple ways to restore a database
8. Explain WITH OVERWRITE option
9. Explain WITH NORECOVERY option
10. Restore differential or t-log backup file
11. Understand Other restore types STANDBY/READONLY
12. UExplain WITH REPLACE option
13. Explain WITH MOVE option
14. Restore the database using a Split files
15. Detail Piecemeal restore process
16. Explain Point-in-time recovery
17. Describe the Page-Level-Restore process
18. Explain Recovery-Only database restore
19. Explain WITH STOPAT option
20. Generate restore data commands using dynamic T-SQL

Questions

In this section, let us deep-dive into the concepts of the database restore options.

1. What is a database restore?

It is the process of reconstructing the data to a usable state from database backup files in order to facilitate database operations.

2. What do you mean by database recovery?

Database recovery is the process of reconstructing the data that has been lost or it may be due to human errors (accidentally deletion) or hardware corruption
or catastrophic failure made the data inaccessible. The data recovery typically refers to the restoration of data to a point where there is no or minimal data loss.

3. How do you check the backup file is a usable state?

The RESTORE VERIFYONLY command is used to check or validate the backup and it will ensure that the backup file is readable form.

RESTORE VERIFYONLY FROM DISK = N'F:\PowerSQL\PowerSQL.BAK'

4. How do you find the how many files are there .bak\trn files?

The RESTORE FILELISTONLY command is used to list all the files related to the specified backup file.

RESTORE FILELISTONLY FROM DISK = N'F:\PowerSQL\PowerSQL.BAK'

5. How do you find the database version of SQL Server by using the backup file?

The RESTORE HEADERONLY command output the header information of the backup.

RESTORE HEADERONLY FROM DISK = N'F:\PowerSQL\PowerSQL.BAK'

6. How do you find software that was used to create the database backup?

The RESTORE LABELONLY command output the backup media information. In the output, we can see a software column.

RESTORE LABELONLY FROM DISK = N'F:\PowerSQL\PowerSQL.BAK'

7. How do you do a simple database restore in SQL Server?

To restore a simple database from a backup file, run the following command

RESTORE DATABASE PowerSQL FROM DISK =N'F:\PowerSQL\PowerSQL_FULL_20171012_1.BAK'

The different ways to perform database restore operations:

 Using T-SQL, the database restore commands are almost similar to backup database commands. To perform database restore, you just need to
change the word “backup” to “restore” and “to” to “from” followed by restore and recovery options
 Using SQL Server Management Studio, run through the following steps:
 Browse Object Explorer
 Right-click Databases
 Click Restore Database
 Select Source in the restore section
 Select From Device, and choose the browse
 Click Add to select the backup file
 Select the Backup set to restore
 Click the options tab, Enable the checkbox to “overwrite the existing database”
 Select the recovery state (RECOVERY or NORECOVERY)
 Click Ok
 Using PowerShell, this is one of the ways to restore a database in PowerShell
 Open the PowerShell ISE
 Load the SQLServer Module
 Define the variables
 Database name
 Backup file location
 Data file location
 Log file location
 Prepare the restore command
 Invoke the SQL string using Invoke-SQLCmd

Import-Module sqlServer

$dbname = "SQLShackDemo"

$backupFile = "\\aqdbt01\f$\PowerSQL\SQLShackDemo_07132018.bak"

$dataFile = "\\aqdbt01\f$\PowerSQL\SQLShackNewDB.mdf"
$logFile = "\\aqdbt01\f$\PowerSQL\SQLShackNewDB_log.ldf"

$backupSql = @"

USE [master]

IF EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.databases WHERE name = '$dbname')

ALTER DATABASE [$dbname] SET SINGLE_USER WITH ROLLBACK IMMEDIATE

RESTORE DATABASE [$dbname]

FROM DISK = N'$backupFile'

WITH FILE = 1,

MOVE N'SQLShackDemo' TO N'$dataFile',

MOVE N'SQLShackDemo_log' TO N'$logFile',

NOUNLOAD, REPLACE, STATS = 5

ALTER DATABASE [$dbname]

SET MULTI_USER

"@

Invoke-Sqlcmd -ServerInstance hqdbt01 -Query $backupSql

8. How do you restore a database from full backup with overwrite option?

The following command is used to restore the database using the specified backup file. If the database already exists, it will overwrite the database files. If the
database doesn’t exist, it will create the database and restore the files to the specified location in the backup command.

RESTORE DATABASE SQLShack FROM DISK N'F:\PowerSQL\SQLSHACK_FULL_20171012_1.BAK'

WITH OVERWRITE

9. How does a full backup restore allow additional restores such as a differential or
transaction log backup?

Using NORECOVERY option, this option leaves the database in a restoring state after the full database restore has completed. This will allow you to restore
additional database backup files in order to get the database more current

RESTORE DATABASE SQLShack FROM DISK N'F:\PowerSQL\SQLSHACK_FULL_20171012_1.BAK'

WITH NORECOVERY
10. How do you do a differential backup file restore?

To restore a differential backup, the options are exactly the same.

 You need do a full database restore with the NORECOVERY option

 Initiate differential restore using the following command
 Bring the database online, if you’ve no other file to restore.

RESTORE DATABASE SQLShack FROM DISK =N'F:\PowerSQL\SQLSHACK_DIFF_20171012_1.BAK' WITH NORECOVERY

GO

RESTORE DATABASE SQLShack WITH RECOVERY

GO

11. What are other types of database restore that you can perform in SQL Server?

You can think of Standby / Read-Only Restore.

This mode is also known as STANDBY mode and can be used for reading operations.

RESTORE LOG PowerSQL FROM DISK='F:\PowerSQL\PowerSQL_log.trn'

WITH STANDBY=N'F:\PowerSQL\PowerSQL_STANDBY_20171012_1.BAK'

The standby option is for High-availability setup such as Log Shipping. In this setup, you have configured a warm standby server for disaster recovery. SQL
Server engine designed to offer the ability to have the secondary database in a restoring state or in a standby state which allows read-only activity on the
secondary database.

12. How does Restore with move option different from normal restore operation?

The RESTORE … WITH MOVE option allows you to specify a new file location for the newly created database. Also, if you are restoring a database from another
instance with different file locations, then you need to use this move option.

RESTORE DATABASE [SQLShackDemoTest] FROM DISK = 'F:\PowerSQL\SQLShackDemo_FULL.BAK'

WITH MOVE N'SQLShackDemo' TO 'F: \PowerSQLTest\ SQLShackDemoTest.mdf', MOVE N' N'SQLShackDemo' _log' TO 'F:

\PowerSQLTest\ SQLShackDemo_log.ldf'

13. How do you do a restore full database from multiple backup files?

SQL Server supports an option of write the backup data to multiple files. In some cases, the database backup file splitting is to manage the workloads of the
system. In this case, it is assumed to be full backup file is available and split into multiple files. The process is similar and we will perform database restore using
the following T-SQL:

RESTORE DATABASE PowerSQL FROM

DISK =N'F:\PowerSQL\PowerSQL_FULL_20171012_1.BAK'
,DISK = N'F:\PowerSQL\PowerSQL_FULL_20171012_2.BAK'

,DISK = N'F:\PowerSQL\PowerSQL_FULL_20171012_3.BAK'

WITH REPLACE ,

MOVE 'PowerSQL' TO 'F:\PowerSQL\PowerSQL_data.mdf',

MOVE 'PowerSQL_Log' TO 'G:\PowerSQL\PowerSQL_data.mdf_log.ldf'

14. What is Piecemeal restore and explain the internals?

Piecemeal restore is a process to help database restore that contains multiple filegroups (s) and it is recovered in multiple stages.

 Piecemeal restore process involves a series of the database restore, starting with the Primary filegroup followed by one or more secondary
filegroup(s).
 Piecemeal restore process works with all recovery models
 The restore process maintains a sequence called partial-restore sequence

Restore database SQLShack FILEGROUP='Primary' from disk=N'F:\PowerSQL\PowerSQL_FULL_20171012.BAK' WITH

NORECOVERY, PARTIAL

See Also,

Database Filegroup(s) and Piecemeal restores in SQL Server

15. What is Point-in-time Recovery?

The RESTORE … WITH STOPAT option allows you to restore your database to a point in time. This gives you the ability to restore a database prior to an event
that occurred that was detrimental to your database. In order for this option to work, the database needs to be either in the FULL or Bulk-Logged recovery
model and you need to be doing transaction log backups.

16. Explain Point-in-time restore with STOPAT option

To perform the point-in-time database restores action, the database recovery model to be in either the Full or Bulk-Logged.

 First, identify the valid FULL or Bulk-logged backup file

 Restore the database with NORECOVERY
 Restore the log

This will restore the database to a point “July 16, 2018, 01:38:00 PM”.

RESTORE DATABASE SQLShack FROM DISK = N'F:\PowerSQL\PowerSQL_FULL_20171012.BAK'

WITH NORECOVERY

GO

RESTORE LOG SQLShack FROM DISK = N'F:\PowerSQL\PowerSQL_LOG_20171012.TRN'

WITH RECOVERY,
STOPAT = 'July 16, 2018 01:38:00 PM'

GO

17. What is Page-level restore in SQL Server?

Page-level restore is a process or technique can be used to replace corrupted pages in a database with an uncorrupted data from the database backup file. If
you have a corrupt page(s) in SQL Server database, instead of restoring a complete database, you can restore only those pages that are corrupted from the
available valid database backup file set. The process can be performed via SSMS or T-SQL. You can query msdb.suspect_pages’ to identify corrupted pages and
track the pages that are marked as “suspect” in the table as well.

Restore database SQLShack PAGE ='1:153,1:202' from disk=N'F:\PowerSQL\PowerSQL_20171012.BAK' WITH RECOVERY

The entire process is very well explained in the following article

How to perform a page level restore in SQL Server

18. What is WITH REPLACE option in Restore command?

The “RESTORE database…WITH REPLACE” option allows overwriting an existing database while doing a database restore process.

The following restore database command overwrite the database files

RESTORE DATABASE [ApexSQLCrd] FROM DISK = N'F:\PowerSQL\ApexSQLCrd_20171012.BAK' WITH REPLACE

19. How do you perform the Recovery-Only database restore?

The scope of recovery-only restore is to the database or file or filegroup(s) level.

Before performing database recovery, restore the entire database make sure it is consistent. However, it is also possible that the recovery can be applied
without restoring an entire database. For example, read-only file.

RESTORE DATABASE SQLShack WITH RECOVERY

For filegroup, issue the following command

RESTORE DATABASE SQLShack FILEGROUP='SQLShackFG' WITH RECOVERY

20. How do you generate restore one/one or more/all database script dynamically?

 In the first T-SQL, the database names and backup file location are passed using a variable.
 In the following steps, you can customize T-SQL to directly feed all the database names by querying the sys.databases object or you can hard code
the database names in the sub-query.

DECLARE

@path varchar(50)='F:\PowerSQL',
 @dbname varchar(100)='SQLShackDemo'

Select

'RESTORE DATABASE '+ '['+sd.Name+']'+ ' FROM DISK = N'+''''+@path+'\'+sd.Name+'_20171012.BAK'+''''+' WITH MOVE

N'+''''+sfm.Name+''''+ ' TO N'+''''+sfm.Physical_Name+''''+','+' MOVE N'+''''+sfl.Name+''''+' TO N'+''''+sfl.physical_name+''''+','+' REPLACE,

STATS = 5 , NORECOVERY'

from

sys.master_files sfm

Join sysdatabases sd On sfm.database_id=sd.dbid and sfm.file_id=1

Join sys.master_files sfl on sfl.database_id=sd.dbid and sfl.file_id=2 and sd.Name in(@dbname)

DECLARE

@path varchar(50)='F:\PowerSQL'

Select

'RESTORE DATABASE '+ '['+sd.Name+']'+ ' FROM DISK = N'+''''+@path+'\'+sd.Name+'_20171012.BAK'+''''+' WITH MOVE

N'+''''+sfm.Name+''''+ ' TO N'+''''+sfm.Physical_Name+''''+','+' MOVE N'+''''+sfl.Name+''''+' TO N'+''''+sfl.physical_name+''''+','+' REPLACE,

STATS = 5 , NORECOVERY'

from

sys.master_files sfm

Join sysdatabases sd On sfm.database_id=sd.dbid and sfm.file_id=1

Join sys.master_files sfl on sfl.database_id=sd.dbid and sfl.file_id=2 and sd.Name in(select name from sys.databases where

database_id>4)

DECLARE

@path varchar(50)='F:\PowerSQL'

Select

'RESTORE DATABASE '+ '['+sd.Name+']'+ ' FROM DISK = N'+''''+@path+'\'+sd.Name+'_20171012.BAK'+''''+' WITH MOVE

N'+''''+sfm.Name+''''+ ' TO N'+''''+sfm.Physical_Name+''''+','+' MOVE N'+''''+sfl.Name+''''+' TO N'+''''+sfl.physical_name+''''+','+' REPLACE,

STATS = 5 , NORECOVERY'

from

sys.master_files sfm
 Join sysdatabases sd On sfm.database_id=sd.dbid and sfm.file_id=1

Join sys.master_files sfl on sfl.database_id=sd.dbid and sfl.file_id=2 and sd.Name in('SQLShackDemo','SQLShackInMemDB')

That’s all for now…stay tuned for more updates.

SQL Interview questions on database backups, restores and recovery – Part IV

https://www.sqlshack.com/sql-interview-questions-on-database-backups-restores-and-recovery-part-iv/

In this article, we’ll see the how the backup-and-restore meta-data tables store the information in the MSDB database. Also, discuss several T-SQL statements
to derive most useful information with reference to data purge, database growth, backup report, restore history and more.

In this article, we’ll discuss the following topics:

1. How do you delete six months old data to reduce the size of the backup and restore history tables?
2. How do you get the Backup History for a specific database including the size, location, and LSN?
3. How do you create and restore a marked transaction?
4. How do you find the RESTORE HISTORY of the database?
5. How do you list the last 30 days restore history at the instance level?
6. How do you measure the database backup or database restore operation progress?
7. How do you measure the database growth using backup size?
8. How do you define or estimate the storage required for database backup?
9. How do you get most recent database backup time for each database?
10. How do you get recent database backup time for each database using PowerShell?
11. How do you get recent database backup time for each database across multiple servers using PowerShell?
12. How do you find the backup history with duration and compressed backup size columns?

Questions

MSDB database is a log-store and it stores a complete history of all SQL Server backup-and-restore operations.

The following table highlights the high-level detail about the backup-and-restore operation:

System tables Description

The system table provides the most granular details of the backup file. It stores one row for each data file

or log file of a database. The columns describe the file type, file group name, page size and file

backupfile configuration information.

The table in-house the filegroup configuration of the database. It stores one row for each filegroup in a

backupfilegroup database.

backupmediafamily It stores a row for each media family.

backupmediaset It stores a row for each backup media set.

backupset It contains a row for each backup set for successful backup.

logmarkhistory
Contains one row for each marked transaction that has been committed. It is applicable to only those
 databases where the recovery model is set to full or bulk-logged.

restorefile It stores one row for each restored file.

restorefilegroup It stores one row for each restored filegroup.

restorehistory It stores one row for each restore operation

It stores one row per page that failed with the error 823 or 824 See the link for more information How to

suspect_pages perform a page level restore in SQL Server

1. How do you delete six months old data to reduce the size of the backup and
restore history tables?

To reduce the size of the backup and restore history tables, delete the entries of backup sets that are older than the specified date-time. It is recommended to
run sp_delete_backuphistory frequently to clean-up the entries from the MSDB database.

USE msdb

GO

Declare @date Datetime = dateadd(mm,-6,getdate())

EXEC sp_delete_backuphistory @date

If you want to remove all the entries of backup history for a specific database, run sp_delete_database_backuphistory <database name>

USE msdb

Go

sp_delete_database_backuphistory 'SQLShackDemo'

2. How do you get the Backup History for a specific database including the size,
location, and LSN?

The following T-SQL provides you the backup information and LSN details of a given database.

The LSN is viewable using the following system-tables and using the restore command:

 backupset
 backupfile
 sys.database_files;
 sys.master_files
 RESTORE HEADERONLY

In the following example, you can see that the LSN is ordered in a Zig-Zag fashion.
SELECT

bs.server_name,

bs.database_name,

bs.backup_start_date,

bs.backup_finish_date,

bs.user_name,

bs.first_LSN,

bs.last_LSN,

CASE

WHEN bs.[type] = 'D'

THEN 'Full Backup'

WHEN bs.[type] = 'I'

THEN 'Differential Database'

WHEN bs.[type] = 'L'

THEN 'Log'

WHEN bs.[type] = 'F'

THEN 'File/Filegroup'

WHEN bs.[type] = 'G'

THEN 'Differential File'

WHEN bs.[type] = 'P'

THEN 'Partial'

WHEN bs.[type] = 'Q'

THEN 'Differential partial'

END

,cast((bs.backup_size/1024)/1024 as numeric(8,0)) 'backup_size MB',

bmf.physical_device_name

from msdb.dbo.backupset bs

inner join msdb.dbo.backupmediafamily bmf

 on bs.media_set_id=bmf.media_set_id

where

bs.database_name='SQLShackDemo'

order by

bs.backup_start_date desc

3. How do you create and restore a marked transaction?

Marked transactions are very useful to recover the database to a logically consistent point.

To create a marked transaction and restore the marked transaction follow the steps:

1. Create full/differential database backup

BACKUP DATABASE [SQLShackDemo] TO DISK='F:\PowerSQL\SQLShackDemo_FULL_07172018.bak' WITH

COMPRESSION,STATS=10

2. Use “BEGIN TRANSACTION WITH MARK” clause to mark the transaction and perform the DML operations

USE [SQLShackDemo]

GO

BEGIN TRANSACTION UpdateBackupInfoDemo

WITH MARK 'UPDATE Compatibility level';

GO

UPDATE dbo.BackupInfo

SET compatibilitylevel=120

WHERE servername='hqdbsp18';

GO

COMMIT TRANSACTION UpdateBackupInfo;

GO

3. Back up the SQLShackDemo transaction-log

BACKUP LOG [SQLShackDemo] TO DISK='F:\PowerSQL\SQLShackDemo_LOG_07172018.TRN' WITH

 COMPRESSION,STATS=10

4. To verify the marked transaction, run the following command

SELECT * FROM MSDB.dbo.logmarkhistory

5.

6.
7. Restore full database backup WITH NORECOVERY option.

USE MASTER

GO

DROP DATABASE IF EXISTS [SQLShackDemo]

RESTORE DATABASE [SQLShackDemo]

FROM DISK='F:\PowerSQL\SQLShackDemo_FULL_07172018.bak'

WITH NORECOVERY;

GO

8. Restore log WITH STOPATMARK option

RESTORE LOG [SQLShackDemo]

FROM DISK='F:\PowerSQL\SQLShackDemo_LOG_07172018.TRN'

WITH RECOVERY,

STOPATMARK = 'UpdateBackupInfo';

9. Verify the data

SELECT * FROM dbo.BackupInfo WHERE servername='aqdbsp18';

10.

11.

4. How do you find the RESTORE HISTORY of the database?

This following T-SQL provides you with information about a particular database with the restore history and source, destination, start, end time and type of the
restore operation.
USE msdb

GO

SELECT

bs.server_name,

bs.database_name Source_database_name,

rh.destination_database_name,

bs.backup_set_id,

bs.backup_start_date,

bs.backup_start_date,

bs.backup_finish_date,

bs.user_name,

bs.first_LSN,

bs.last_LSN,

CASE

WHEN bs.[type] = 'D'

THEN 'Full Backup'

WHEN bs.[type] = 'I'

THEN 'Differential Database'

WHEN bs.[type] = 'L'

THEN 'Log'

WHEN bs.[type] = 'F'

THEN 'File/Filegroup'

WHEN bs.[type] = 'G'

THEN 'Differential File'

WHEN bs.[type] = 'P'

THEN 'Partial'

WHEN bs.[type] = 'Q'

THEN 'Differential partial'

 END

,bmf.physical_device_name,

rh.restore_date

,rh.stop_at_mark_name

from backupset bs

inner join backupmediafamily bmf on bs.media_set_id=bmf.media_set_id

inner join restorehistory rh on bs.backup_set_id=rh.backup_set_id

where

bs.database_name='SQLShackDemo'

order by

rh.restore_date desc

5. How do you list the last 30 days restore history at the instance level?

The following T-SQL provides you a list of last 30 days data of database restore history.

SELECT

b.database_name source_database_name,

rh.destination_database_name,

rh.user_name AS [Restored By],

CASE WHEN rh.restore_type = 'D' THEN 'Database Restore'

WHEN rh.restore_type = 'F' THEN 'File Restore'

WHEN rh.restore_type = 'G' THEN 'Filegroup Restore'

WHEN rh.restore_type = 'I' THEN 'Differential Restore'

WHEN rh.restore_type = 'L' THEN 'Log Restore'

ELSE rh.restore_type

END AS [Restore Type],

rh.restore_date,

bm.physical_device_name SourceDevice

,rf.destination_phys_name destDevice
FROM msdb.dbo.restorehistory rh

INNER JOIN msdb.dbo.backupset b ON rh.backup_set_id = b.backup_set_id

INNER JOIN msdb.dbo.restorefile r ON rh.restore_history_id = r.restore_history_id

INNER JOIN msdb.dbo.backupmediafamily bm ON bm.media_set_id = b.media_set_id

WHERE

rh.restore_date >= DATEADD(dd, -30,getdate())

ORDER BY

rh.restore_history_id desc

Output:

6. How do you measure the database backup or database restore operation progress?

To measure the backup operation progress or estimate the time and percentage completed, you can query the DMV—sys.dm_exec_requests.

This script provides the output with backup estimation time and percentage completed.

SELECT command,

s.text,

er.start_time,

er.percent_complete,

CAST(((DATEDIFF(s,start_time,GetDate()))/3600) as varchar) + ' hr(s), '

+ CAST((DATEDIFF(s,start_time,GetDate())%3600)/60 as varchar) + 'min(s), '

+ CAST((DATEDIFF(s,start_time,GetDate())%60) as varchar) + ' ss' as running_time,

CAST((estimated_completion_time/3600000) as varchar) + ' hr(s), '

+ CAST((estimated_completion_time %3600000)/60000 as varchar) + 'min(s), '

+ CAST((estimated_completion_time %60000)/1000 as varchar) + ' ss' as est_time_to_go,

dateadd(second,estimated_completion_time/1000, getdate()) as est_completion_time

FROM sys.dm_exec_requests er

CROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_sql_text(er.sql_handle) s

WHERE er.command in ('BACKUP DATABASE', 'BACKUP LOG', 'RESTORE DATABASE', 'RESTORE LOG')
7. How do you measure the database growth using backup size?

You can construct the T-SQL using backup system table to analyze the growth of the database over a given timeframe. The T-SQL script used in the below-
mentioned link is used to calculate the capacity planning of the databases. The metrics are useful for capacity planning and forecasting.

Backup and Restore (or Recovery) strategies for SQL Server database

8. How do you define or estimate the storage required for database backup?

You can refer the T-SQL to get very detailed information about the database backup history. It also talks about capturing the baseline database growth
metrics.

Planning a SQL Server Backup and Restore strategy in a multi-server environment using PowerShell and T-SQL

9. How do you get most recent database backup time for each database?

The following T-SQL provides the most recent backup completion time of all databases along with the database name

SELECT sd.Name AS DatabaseName,

COALESCE(CONVERT(VARCHAR(12), MAX(bs.backup_finish_date), 101),'-') AS LastBackUpTime

FROM sys.sysdatabases sd

LEFT OUTER JOIN msdb.dbo.backupset bs ON bs.database_name = sd.name

GROUP BY sd.Name

10. How do you get recent database backup time for each database using
PowerShell?

The following PowerShell script provides the most recent backup completion time of all databases with the database name

1. Load the SQLServer Module

2. Instantiate the SMO class library
3. Invoke the database property

TRY {

If (Get-Module SQLServer -ListAvailable)

Write-Verbose "Preferred SQLServer module found"

else

{
Install-Module -Name SqlServer

} CATCH {

Write-Host "Check the Module and version"

$srv = New-Object ('Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.Server') 'hqdbt01'

$databases=$srv.Databases

$databases | SELECT Name,LastBackupDate, LastLogBackupDate | Format-Table -autosize

11. How do you get recent database backup time for each database across multiple
servers using PowerShell?

This can be done using looping construct in PowerShell with very few lines of code.

1. Load the SQLServer Module

2. List the SQL Server instances
3. Use looping construct to Instantiate the SMO class library and list the database properties

Install-Module -Name SqlServer

$List = @('aqdbsp18','aqdbs19','adbs201')

$list|%{(New-Object -TypeName Microsoft.SQLServer.Management.Smo.Server($ServerName)).Databases| SELECT

Name,LastBackupDate, LastLogBackupDate | Format-Table -autosize}

12. How do you find the backup history with duration and compressed backup size
columns?

The following T-SQL get the latest successful backups and it includes columns such as database name, backup start time, backup end time, a derived column
named duration (mins), backup file location, type of the backup, backup size, and compressed backup size (if used)

SELECT

bs.database_name DatabaseName,

bs.backup_start_date Backup_Start_Date,

bs.backup_finish_date Backup_Finished_Date,

DATEDIFF(MINUTE, bs.backup_start_date, bs.backup_finish_date) Duration_Mins,

bmf.physical_device_name Backup_File_Location,

CASE
 WHEN bs.[type] = 'D'

THEN 'Full_Backup'

WHEN bs.[type] = 'I'

THEN 'Differential_Backup'

WHEN bs.[type] = 'L'

THEN 'Log_Backup'

WHEN bs.[type] = 'F'

THEN 'File/Filegroup backup'

WHEN bs.[type] = 'G'

THEN 'DifferentialFile_Backup'

WHEN bs.[type] = 'P'

THEN 'Partial_Backup'

WHEN bs.[type] = 'Q'

THEN 'Differentialpartial_Backup'

END 'Backup_Type',

ROUND(((bs.backup_size/1024)/1024),2) Backup_SizeMB,

ROUND(((bs.compressed_backup_size/1024)/1024),2) CompressedBackup_SizeMB

FROM msdb.dbo.backupmediafamily bmf

INNER JOIN msdb.dbo.backupset bs

ON bmf.media_set_id = bs.media_set_id

ORDER BY

bs.backup_start_date DESC

Output:
That’s all for now…

Wrapping up

Thus far, we’ve covered most of the concepts of “database backup-and-restore” operations. Please refer the TOC for more information.
Database Filegroup(s) and Piecemeal restores in SQL Server
https://www.sqlshack.com/database-filegroups-and-piecemeal-restores-in-sql-server/

So far, we discussed many de-facto details about SQL Server database backup and restore. In this 15 th article of the series, we
are going to discuss, the file-group and piecemeal database backup and restore process.

Database “Backup and Restore” strategies are vital to every organization for smoother functioning of the business. Database
design concepts are also important in defining the backup and restore strategy. A good database design structure and
proper planning would give us an ample time to speed up the recovery process.

In this article, we will discuss the following topics:

1. Introduction
2. Explain file-group(s) level database backup and restore operations
3. Discuss piecemeal database restore process
4. Demo
5. And more…

In some cases, taking full database backup sis not a big deal, whereas, for VLDB databases or large OLTP databases, it may
not be a feasible solution to initiate frequent full database backups in-and-out. In such scenarios, the file(s) and filegroup(s)
backup and restore options play a vital role.

If you are operating VLDB database, in some cases, it becomes a daunting task to perform full database backup and restore
as it may take several hours to complete the backup and restore operation.

Piecemeal restore helps with databases that contain multiple filegroups to be restored and recovered at multiple stages. This
would give an option to customize the backup and restore (or recovery) solution.

Based on recommended practices and database design principles; if the database is designed to leverage data and segments
to different file groups and store them on a different drive this provides a great advantage when doing backups of the
database, and restoring the database in case of any database corruption or failure. Let’s say that one of the non-primary data
files may become corrupt or otherwise it can go offline due to some hardware failure then there is no need to perform the
full database restores, instead, only restore the filegroup that are needed. This operation will suffice or speed-up the entire
restoration process.

Getting started

Let us jump into the demo to see how to perform the backup and restore operation.

In most of the cases, a single data file and log file works best for the database design requirement. If you’re planning to
leverage data across multiple data files, create secondary file groups for the data and indexes, and make the secondary
filegroup a default one for the storage. In this way, the primary-file will contain only the system objects. Then it’s possible
that a single file group’s data file may become corrupted or otherwise go offline due to hardware failure or I/O subsystem
failure. When this happens, there’s no need to perform a full database restore. After all, the rest of the file groups are all still
safe and sound. By only restoring the file groups that need it, this way you can speed up the entire restoration process.

Let’s go ahead and complete the prep work by executing the following the T-SQL:

1. The SQLShackFGDB database is created for the demo.

CREATE DATABASE SQLShackFGDB;

 GO

USE SQLShackFGDB;

2. Change the recovery model of the SQLShackFGDB database to FULL

ALTER DATABASE SQLShackFGDB SET RECOVERY FULL;

3. Next, add additional file archiveData.ndf to the filegroup SecondarySQLShackFGDB to a SQLShackFGDB database

ALTER DATABASE SQLShackFGDB

ADD FILEGROUP SecondarySQLShackFGDB;

GO

ALTER DATABASE SQLShackFGDB

ADD FILE

NAME = archiveData,

FILENAME = 'f:\powerSQL\archiveData.ndf',

SIZE = 5MB,

MAXSIZE = 100MB,

FILEGROWTH = 10MB

TO FILEGROUP SecondarySQLShackFGDB;

4. Now, the database has two filegroups

a. Primary
b. SecondarySQLShackFGDB

SELECT DB_NAME() databasename,

sf.name FileName,
 size/128 SizeMB,

fg.name FGName,sf.physical_name

FROM sys.database_files sf

INNER JOIN

sys.filegroups fg ON sf.data_space_id=fg.data_space_id

5.

6.
7. Verify the location and it’s status of all the respective data and log files

SELECT name, physical_name, state_desc

FROM sys.master_files

WHERE database_id = DB_ID('SQLShackFGDB');

8.

9.
10. Now, let’s use these two file groups, and create two tables. First table called ActiveSQLShackAuthor , and we’ll store it
on the primary file group. Then, a second table called InactiveSQLShackAuthor, and this one on
the SecondarySQLShackFGDB file group.

CREATE TABLE ActiveSQLShackAuthor (

ID int IDENTITY(1,1) PRIMARY KEY,

AUthorName nvarchar(100) NOT NULL);

GO

CREATE TABLE InactiveSQLShackAuthor (

ID int IDENTITY(1,1) PRIMARY KEY,

AUthorName nvarchar(100) NOT NULL)

ON SecondarySQLShackFGDB;
 GO

11. Populate data into these tables

INSERT INTO ActiveSQLShackAuthor (AUthorName)

values('Active1'),('Active2'),('Active3'),('Active4'),('Active5')

GO

INSERT INTO InactiveSQLShackAuthor (AUthorName)

values('Inactive1'),('Inactive2'),('Inactive3'),('Inactive4'),('Inactive5')

12. Verify the existence of inserted data into the SQL table

SELECT * FROM ActiveSQLShackAuthor;

SELECT * FROM InActiveSQLShackAuthor;

13.

14.
15. The following query list all the objects that are create on all the filegroups in the database

SELECT

OBJECT_NAME(st.object_id) AS ObjectName,

sds.name AS FileGroup

FROM sys.data_spaces sds

JOIN sys.indexes si on si.data_space_id = sds.data_space_id

JOIN sys.tables st on st.object_id = si.object_id

WHERE si.index_id < 2

AND st.type = 'U';

GO
 16.

17.

This section walkthrough the backup and restore step.

First, initiate a backup of the entire database using full database backup command. The WITH format option is used to
override the already existing backups in the f:/PowerSQL/ folder.

-- backup the database

BACKUP DATABASE SQLShackFGDB

TO DISK = 'f:\PowerSQL\SQLShackFGDB.bak'

WITH FORMAT;

Let’s insert few more records into the InactiveSQLShackAuthor table.

INSERT INTO InactiveSQLShackAuthor (AuthorName)

values('Inactive6'),

('Inactive7'),

('Inactive8'),

('Inactive9'),

('Inactive10')

I’ll execute the following statement to create the backup of the filegroup.

-- backup the secondary filegroup by itself

BACKUP DATABASE SQLShackFGDB

FILEGROUP = 'SecondarySQLShackFGDB'

TO DISK = 'f:\PowerSQL\SecondarySQLShackFGDB.bak'

GO
Let’s simulate the hardware failure event by deleting the files. Now, the SQL Server won’t be able to access the secondary
filegroup.

1. Bring the database offline

USE MASTER;

GO

ALTER DATABASE SQLShackFGDB SET OFFLINE WITH ROLLBACK IMMEDIATE

2.

3.
4. Locate the the secondary file and delete

5. Now, try to bring the database online

USE MASTER;

GO

ALTER DATABASE SQLShackFGDB SET ONLINE

6.

7.
8. Check the error-log to isolate the issue. As we’ve deleted the file, the error-log report about the missing file.

9. Initiate a tail-log backup to recover the newly added data entries from the transaction log file.

USE MASTER

GO

-- need a tail log backup first

BACKUP LOG SQLShackFGDB

 TO DISK = 'f:\PowerSQL\SQLShackFGDBTaillog.bak'

WITH NO_TRUNCATE;

GO

10. Now, restore the secondary filegroup from the backup with NORECOVERY option.

RESTORE DATABASE SQLShackFGDB

FILE = 'archiveData',

FILEGROUP = 'SecondarySQLShackFGDB'

FROM DISK = 'f:\PowerSQL\SecondarySQLShackFGDB.bak'

WITH NORECOVERY

GO

11.

12.
13. Apply the tail log to the database to bring it online

RESTORE LOG SQLShackFGDB

FROM DISK = 'f:\PowerSQL\SQLShackFGDBTaillog.bak'

WITH RECOVERY

GO

14.

15.
16. Let’s go ahead validate the recovery process by querying the SQL table.

SELECT * FROM ActiveSQLShackAuthor;

SELECT * FROM InActiveSQLShackAuthor;

17.
Piecemeal restore
https://www.sqlshack.com/database-filegroups-and-piecemeal-restores-in-sql-server/

Piecemeal restore process involves a series of restore step sequences, starting with the primary and, one or more secondary
read-write filegroups followed by read-only filegroups.

In some scenarios, we need to do a database restore from the backup. As we know, we do have the option to restore
required file groups but not all of the file groups are requirered to make the database online at a specific instance. It is always
required to restore the primary file group but any secondary user defined file groups are optional, at that point, while doing
the restore. After the restore, one could get partial data and it’s available online and for the rest of the data, the users can
wait, for a period of time,to recover other filegroups.

The RESTORE DATABASE command with PARTIAL clause starts a new piecemeal restore operation. The keyword PARTIAL
indicates that the restore process involves a partial restore. The partial keyword defines and initiates the partial-restore
sequence. This will be validated during the recovery stages. The state of the database restores remains to be recovery
pending because their database recovery has been postponed.

Let us follow the below steps to prove the concept of the piecemeal process

1. First, add another filegroup to store the static data

ALTER DATABASE SQLShackFGDB

ADD FILEGROUP ReadOnlySQLShackFGDB;

GO

ALTER DATABASE SQLShackFGDB

ADD FILE

NAME = readonlyData,

FILENAME = 'f:\powerSQL\readonlydata.ndf',

SIZE = 5MB,

MAXSIZE = 100MB,

FILEGROWTH = 10MB

TO FILEGROUP ReadOnlySQLShackFGDB;

GO
2. Add a table to the filegroup ReadOnlySQLShackFGDB and insert few records to the table

CREATE TABLE ReportSQLShackAuthor (

ID int IDENTITY(1,1) PRIMARY KEY,

AUthorName nvarchar(100) NOT NULL)

ON ReadOnlySQLShackFGDB;

GO

INSERT INTO ReportSQLShackAuthor (AUthorName)

values('Report1'),

('Report2'),

('Report3'),

('Report4'),

('Report5')

3. Query the table to validate the data

select * from ReportSQLShackAuthor

4.

5.
6. To change the filegroup state to read_only use the following alter database command

use master

GO

ALTER DATABASE SQLShackFGDB MODIFY FILEGROUP ReadOnlySQLShackFGDB READ_ONLY;

7.
8. Backup the SQLShackFGDB database
 BACKUP DATABASE SQLShackFGDB

TO DISK = 'f:\PowerSQL\SQLShackFGDB.bak'

WITH FORMAT;

GO

9. The database has three filegroup, One is read-only and other two are in read-write mode. Verify the filegroup status
by executing the following T-SQL

SELECT DB_NAME() databasename,

sf.name FileName,

size/128 SizeMB,

fg.name FGName,sf.physical_name,

sf.state_desc,

sf.is_read_only

FROM sys.database_files sf

INNER JOIN

sys.filegroups fg

ON sf.data_space_id=fg.data_space_id

10.
11. Backup the read-only database

BACKUP DATABASE SQLShackFGDB

FILEGROUP = 'ReadOnlySQLShackFGDB'

TO DISK = 'f:\PowerSQL\ReadOnlySQLShackFGDB.bak'

WITH FORMAT

GO

12.
13.
14. Now, drop the database to simulate the piecemeal recovery process of the database

USE MASTER;

GO

DROP DATABASE SQLShackFGDB

15. Let’s perform the database restore operation. Before you start, change the session context to master database. Now,
we’re going to do the read-write filegroups restore using READ_WRITE_FILEGROUPS clause.

USE MASTER

GO

RESTORE DATABASE SQLShackFGDB READ_WRITE_FILEGROUPS

FROM DISK = 'f:\PowerSQL\SQLShackFGDB.bak'

WITH PARTIAL, RECOVERY

GO

SELECT TOP (1000) [ID]

,[AUthorName]

FROM [SQLShackFGDB].[dbo].[InactiveSQLShackAuthor]

GO

SELECT TOP (1000) [ID]

,[AUthorName]

FROM [SQLShackFGDB].[dbo].ReportSQLShackAuthor

16.

17.
18. Next, restore the read-only filegroups
 RESTORE DATABASE SQLShackFGDB

FILE = 'readonlyData',

FILEGROUP = 'ReadOnlySQLShackFGDB'

FROM DISK = 'f:\PowerSQL\ReadOnlySQLShackFGDB.bak'

WITH RECOVERY

19.

20.
21. Verify the output by querying the read-only table data

SELECT TOP (1000) [ID]

,[AUthorName]

FROM [SQLShackFGDB].[dbo].[InactiveSQLShackAuthor]

GO

SELECT TOP (1000) [ID]

,[AUthorName]

FROM [SQLShackFGDB].[dbo].ReportSQLShackAuthor

22.

23.

Wrapping up

This article walkthrough the database backup and restore (or recovery) of a SQL Server that contain multiple files or
filegroups.

We also talked about file and filegroup level backup and the available options to restore partial databases with the concept
of a piecemeal restore. We saw how to perform the database recovery process by enabling filegroup backups. There is an
option available, that we reviewed, to speed up the recovery process without having to restore the entire database.