Mastering: System Center Data Protection Manager 2007

Chapter 8. Protecting SQL Servers

The system is down!

—Strongbad

In most environments, database servers tend to host the data that is considered to be the most critical for a business: financial data, customer information, inventory tracking, just about every modern application (especially web applications) relies on databases to store and manage data relationships and queries. Due to the complexity of many of these databases, there are professionals whose entire careers are dedicated to all facets of database work from development to deployment to administration to application programming. Database administrators and systems administrators often work closely together to ensure that the database services are kept up and running and that the data within them is adequately protected.

Not all SQL database information is meant for user-facing applications. Especially in a Microsoft shop, you probably have SQL Server machines that host data for infrastructure applications:

• Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) and its predecessor, Software Update Services (SUS), both use a SQL Server instance to keep track of which software updates you've downloaded and approved, the computer groups you've defined, and the status of which machines have applied which updates.

• Almost all of the System Center applications rely on SQL Server databases for critical data storage:

  • System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) and predecessor System Management Server (SMS) use SQL to track the configuration, hardware ...