Backup & Recovery from First Principles, Part 5: Restore Sequences and the STOPAT Rewind
The first four parts of this series were about taking backups. This one is about the operation they all exist for. A restore sequence is a small program you write under pressure, and its grammar…
Backup & Recovery from First Principles, Part 3: The Log Chain and How People Break It
showed that log backups form a linked list: each backup’s first_lsn equals the previous backup’s last_lsn. Point-in-time restore works by walking that list. Break one link and every log backup after the break is useless…
Backup & Recovery from First Principles, Part 1: Recovery Models Actually Explained
Every SQL Server database has a recovery model, and most databases got theirs by inheritance rather than by decision: whatever model had at CREATE DATABASE time is what you are running today. That default determines…
Optimal Log File Growth and Virtual Log Files
Intro The SQL Server Transaction Log is a critical component of each database, and should be managed pro-actively. Optimal log file growth is simple to setup, but knowing the right numbers to use for initial…