For network backup of SQL Server, account from where Stratesave is run must have Administrator access on the SQL Server, and the SQL Server must be configured to allow remote TCP/IP access. See Network Database Backup for details. Stratesave backs up SQL server at the database level. Within macros, you can select SQL server databases for backup. The master database contains SQL server security and other customized settings. The backed up databases are stored in SQL server dump format, which is not compatible with the raw database files.
During a full backup, entire database is backed up. In a differential backup, changes are backed up, since last full backup. Differential backups are not supported for SQL Server 6.5. Optionally, differential backups can be configured to fully backup the SQL server. During incremental backup, only the update since last incremental backup or last full or differential backup will be backed up, keeping the backups small. Incremental backups are therefore for short-interval backups.
During restore, Stratesave automatically restores the full backup, differential and all incremental backups in correct order, to recover the database to most recent state.
For incremental backups (Transaction Log backups) to work, SQL database option trunc. log on chkpt. must be set off on SQL Server 7, or Recovery Model must be set to Full or Bulk-Logged Recovery on SQL Server 2005/2000. On SQL Server 6.5, database option Truncate Log on checkpoint must be set off, and Database Devices for Database and Logs should be different. These options must be set for every database which is backed up with incremental backups.
You can restore the databases back to SQL server, if SQL server is running. Alternatively, you can restore the backed up SQL database(s) to file(s). The resulted files can then be used as input to the SQL server Enterprise Manager's restore. Stratesave currently allows restore databases back to their original locations only, with the original storage files. The SQL server's Enterprise manager's restore allows changing the database name and/or storage locations during restore. So, if you want to restore database under new name or assign it different storage location, restore the database to a file first, then use Enterprise manager to restore from file to database.
Alternatively, SQL Server on Windows 2003 can be backed up by VSS (Volume Snapshot Service) through Service State\MSDEWriter or VSS\SqlServerWriter. These are always full backups, but they can be combined with standard SQL differential and incremental backups. Sql Server Writer is for SQL Server 2005 and is active only if the SQL Writer Service is started. If SQL Writer Service is running the SQL Server 2005 databases are no longer visible under MSDEWriter. To switch back to MSDEWriter usage, stop SQl Server Writer Service, set it to Manual Start and set Registry Value HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\VSS\Settings\MSDEVersionChecking to 0.
SQL Server database with VSS full backup and standard SQL differential/incremental backups must be restored in 2 runs. First restore the VSS database (under MSDE writer or SQL Server writer) with option Don't recover restored SQL databases=On. Then Restore the incremental/differential SQL databases (selectable under SQL Server), with option Don't recover restored SQL databases=Off.
See also: Full Restore of SQL Server Network Database Backup Incremental Database Backup