It’s possible you’ve never heard of Red Gate Software, based in Cambridge, England, but it has just released a backup software package specifically for SQL Server that you may want to know about — even if you’re not a database admin or storage manager.
SQL Backup Pro 6 features improved “network resilience to recover interrupted backup operations, self-healing log shipping and a new advanced compression algorithm,” Red Gate claims.
“Marketing calls it ‘reassuringly resilient’; I call it the tool for the job,” said Colin Millerchip, SQL Backup Pro 6’s product manager. “The new features in Version 6 are Red Gate’s answer to backup issues that keep DBAs awake at night — the issues not addressed easily by native SQL Server or other backup software.”
Red Gate said this “network resilience” eliminates the time-consuming forensics required to recover interrupted backup operations following an outage. DBAs can use default settings or settings of their own to designate the length of time the software waits before retrying a transfer from the point where it was interrupted. It can also determine the number of attempts SQL Backup Pro will make at retrying the backup operation.
If a network outage occurs while transaction log backup files are being copied, SQL Backup Pro 6 keeps a record of the affected files. When the network outage is resolved, the “self-healing” process begins: SQL Backup Pro 6 automatically reattempts the transfer from where it was interrupted and reprocesses the affected transaction log files.
Other new features Red Gate is touting:
— the ability to skip initialization of the database when performing log shipping if the target database is already set up with a full backup of the source database;
— a “kill existing connections” option to prevent a restore from failing if users are connected to a database while a restore operation is in progress; and
— GUI enhancements, including faster loading of data, easier file browsing and support for different purge options.
For more information and a 14-day free trial, go here.