Windows Server® 2008 Bible

Chapter 7. Backup and Restore

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Understanding backup practice and procedure

• Introducing removable storage and media pools

• Using the backup tools that come with Windows Server 2008

• Working with shadow copies

Every MIS or network administrator has a horror story to tell about backing up and restoring systems or data. One organization for which we manage more than a dozen backup servers has data processing centers spread all across the United States, and all are interconnected via a large, private wide-area network. Not long ago, a valuable remote Microsoft SQL Server machine just dropped dead. The IT doctor said it had died of exhaustion ... five years of faithful service and never a day's vacation. After trying everything to revive it, we instructed the data center's staff to ship the server back to HQ for repairs.

The first thing we asked the IT people at the remote office was: "You've been doing your backups everyday right?" "Sure thing," they replied. "Every day for the past five years." They sounded so proud that we were overjoyed. "Good, we need to rebuild your server from those tapes, so send them all to us with the server." To cut a frustrating story short, the five years' worth of tapes had nada on them—not a bit nor a byte. Zilch. We spent two weeks trying to make sense of what was on that SQL Server computer and rebuild it. We refuse to even guess the cost of that loss.

We have another horror story to relate later, but this example should make clear to you that backup ...