How about a UI that lets you restore data pages in SQL Server? Well that’s exactly what we have in SQL Server 2012. The UI allows you to select the pages from the backup to restore rather than restoring the entire database.
Here are the steps how we can restore a data page in SQL Server 2012
Step 1:
Step 2: Once you click on Check database pages you will have list of pages that are corrupt. Click on Add. Choose the correct backup set and click on OK. The corrupt data page\s will be restored.
How about a nice GUI that lets you select the time to which you want to restore all your available backups in sequence in one go. A TIMELINE of restoration points. That would be fantastic and that is what SQL server 2012 has introduced. Point in time recovery via the TIMELINE feature. Let us understand this feature with an example.
I have created a database called MyDB which I will restore to a point in time. I have kept the DB in full recovery mode. The following backups have been taken.
1) 1 full backup
2) 1 Diff backup
3) 5 t-log backups
Snapshot of the backups
Now lets recover this database to a point in time from the available backup via TIMELINE option.
Step 1: Right click on the database -> Tasks-> restore -> database
Step 2: select device. Give a new name to the restored DB
Step 3: Click on the add button and select all the backup files
Step 4: Click on ok and you will see the below screen. Observe the option restore to
Step 5: Lets click on TIMELINE button and this is what you will see
Step 6: Select the option -> Specific date and time. Once you do that you will be able to move the scroll bar to any time highlighted in green. In tis case i have moved it to 6:02:03 PM. This is the time i would like to have my DB restored to. Click on OK.
Once you click on OK, you will find the below screen with the required backup only. Also observe that a tail log backup will also be taken.
Step 7: Click on options tab. We will go with restore with recovery. Click on OK
Once you click on OK you will find the db restored with recovery to the name given above
In this article I will demonstrate how we can restore a table from a SQL Server database backup file which has been taken by Quest Litespeed tool. This feature called Object level recovery in the tool is extremely helpful as you need not restore the entire database and yet retrieve data from the backup. Follow the below mentioned steps and understand how this can be accomplished. I will be using a trial copy of Quest Litespeed along with SQL server 2012 and the database we would use is Adventureworks2012. However you can use SQL server 2008 also.
Step 1: Create a database and take a full backup of the database
Let us create a database for this purpose
CREATE DATABASE MyDB GO USE mydb GO CREATE TABLE Mytable1 ( id INT,FNAME NVARCHAR(50) ) GO INSERT INTO Mytable1 VALUES (1,'Sanchayan') GO INSERT INTO Mytable1 VALUES (2,'Abhishek') go CREATE TABLE Mytable2 ( id INT,LNAME NVARCHAR(50) ) GO INSERT INTO Mytable2 VALUES (1,'Pandit') GO INSERT INTO Mytable2 VALUES (2,'Agrawal') go
Now take a Full Backup of the database.
exec master.dbo.xp_backup_database @database = N'Mydb', @compressionlevel = 3, @filename = N'D:\MSSQL\SQLBackup\Mydb.bak', @init = 0, @OLRMAP = 1--This is important as this marks the backup for object level recovery GO
Step 2: Now run the following code to find the Tables available in the backup
Use Master go exec xp_objectrecovery_viewcontents @FileName = N'D:\MSSQL\SQLBackup\mydb.bak', @FileNumber = 1, @Type = 'All', @DisableLogProcessing = 1
Step 3: Now select the table that you wish to restore. In this demo we would restore MyTable2.
We would need the below predefined:
a) The database where we would restore the table.
b) A temp directory location which should be large enough for the table to be restored initially.
Use master go exec xp_objectrecovery @FileName = N'D:\MSSQL\SQLBackup\Mydb.bak', @FileNumber = 1, @ObjectName = N'dbo.Mytable2', @DestinationTable = N'[dbo].[Mytable2]', @DestinationDatabase = N'MyTempDB', @DestinationServer = N'GN-A-MOOKBO-7L\sql2012', @TempDirectory = N'D:\MSSQL\SQLBackup', @DisableLogProcessing = 1
The output of the above code would be as below
To verify if the data you can query the table that we restored on mytempdb database
I hope this article was helpful in understanding how we can use ‘Object level recovery’ to fetch data from a full backup file that has been taken using Quest Litespeed for SQL Server tool.
Technical reference: http://www.quest.com/litespeed-for-sql-server/
Applied SQL... 