A Simple Comparison
I used a 10 GB production database for this review. It took almost 30 minutes to complete the backup using SQL Server’s native backup utility. SQL Backup completed it in half the time and — what a beauty — it reduced the size of the backup file up to 93 percent, which saved server resources.
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SQL Server’s Native Utility |
Red-Gate’s SQL Backup |
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Compression |
Up to 55 percent |
Up to 93 percent |
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Encryption |
Not available |
128-bit and 256-bit |
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Time |
30 minutes |
14:45 minutes |
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Size |
7.8 GB |
718.877 MB |
Restoring a Backup
Restoring a database is also a very easy step-by-step process. SQL Backup won’t allow your backup to restore / unpack until a password is provided thus providing even more security on top of the AES Encryption.
Log Shipping
This new release of SQL Backup includes Log Shipping, which allows you to use a standby server or copy your data offline. A standby server is great to have in case of an emergency or a server crash.
With Log Shipping, backing up the transaction logs from a source database and then copying and restoring the logs to a destination database keeps the destination database synchronized with the source database. This allows you to have a backup server and also provides a way to offload query processing from the main computer (the source server) to read-only destination servers.
- Your recovery model needs to be BULK LOGGED or FULL if you want to set up Log Shipping.
- The database on the secondary server must be in a ‘unrecover’ state, which means the last restore process must have been made with the NORECOVERY or STANDBY option enabled.
The wizard makes Log Shipping configuration so easy that even if you are setting it up for the first time you can do so without much effort.
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Standard Edition |
Pro Edition |
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Up to 95% smaller backups |
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Up to twice as fast as native backup |
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128-bit AES Encryption |
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256-bit AES Encryption |
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Multiple compression levels |
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SQL Server 2005 compatible backups |
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Simple to use GUI, or powerful command-line interface |
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Access and manage all server backups remotely, from a central, client-based GUI |
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Multiple encryption levels, up to 256-bit AES Encryption |
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Simple log shipping process with the Log Shipping Wizard |
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Conclusion
As the simple comparison (above) shows, using SQL Backup saves bandwidth and time. The wizards make performing operations a breeze. There is abundant documentation available online.
Because this is such an excellent tool, and available at a relatively low cost, I believe it is a necessary part of every DBA’s tool kit. Download SQL Backup and try it for yourself to see what you have been missing.
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