Proving the Restore, Part 11: Generating the Restore Script
Everything so far establishes that a set of backups is coherent: complete stripes, a matching differential base, an unbroken log chain, one lineage, and a reachable target time. Writing the restore statements from that point…
Proving the Restore, Part 10: Can You Reach That Point in Time?
Someone asks you to restore a database to 14:30 yesterday, just before a bad deployment. The answer is either a time estimate or “the closest I can get is 14:15”, and which one it is…
Proving the Restore, Part 9: Backups From a Different Database
Two backup files, same database name, same server name, LSNs that line up. They can still be from different databases. Database names get reused. A database is restored under a new name, then renamed back….
Proving the Restore, Part 8: Proving the Log Chain Has No Gaps
Restoring a full backup and then a hundred log backups works only if the logs form an unbroken sequence. One missing backup in the middle and the restore stops there, with the database still in…
Proving the Restore, Part 7: One File, Hundreds of Backup Sets
Point RESTORE HEADERONLY at a full backup and you get one row. Point it at the file a fifteen-minute log backup job has been appending to since Sunday and you get several hundred. Each row…
Proving the Restore, Part 6: The Differential Base Has to Match
A differential backup contains every extent changed since its base full backup. Not since the last differential, and not since whichever full is newest on disk, but since one specific full backup. Restore it onto…