New Approach to Backup
Acronis has been working hard to address some traditional issues with backup and recovery approaches for SQL Server. While it’s possible to do the whole database and transaction log dump and restore cycle to recover a system, Acronis has gone a step farther. They’ve created tools that help you recover to the point of failure – making it a more concise and straightforward process to get back online when you need it most. Check out their disaster recovery tools – they do some really interesting things. Get more information here.
SQL Server Data Services
At MIX, the Internet developer’s conference, Microsoft has announced SQL Server Data Services – essentially SQL Server in the cloud. I talked about this just a few days ago – whether you’d put your critical data on the ‘net to be managed by a service such as this. The response was mixed, and between this and people I have since spoken with, it’s clear that people are interested, but hesitant, to put critical data in the hands of others.
SSDS appears to be aimed at the smaller shops – though examples they’re touting with the service are certainly larger solutions. From what I can understand at this point, it almost seems like SSDS is a supplemental data store to SQL Servers implemented at businesses. I frankly can’t tell though if this perception is a bit of covering for not wanting to impact SQL Server installations, a real approach or a misconception on my part. I will find out and let you know more.
The benefits are potentially quite significant if you can get past the whole "managed" SQL Server thing. It gets me a bit concerned though. I hope that the companies proving software as a service get real about their offerings and the support that really needs to be part of the picture. For example, one online customer management system that I’m sure you have heard of wants to charge $10,000 (!) for a restore of a customer database in some cases. That’s a lot of cash when you’re already paying a subscription fee for access and are assuming things are covered in terms of backups and the like for this software as a service that you rely on.
If the recovery costs that much, it makes me question the backup and recovery processes in place – it should be built to support recovery, built to provide that layer of protection for customers. And, if that’s the case, it shouldn’t cost $10,000 for a restore.
Of course you can’t really "inspect" the solutions in place. This is where things get a bit dicey. I hope that Microsoft will lead the way and talk transparently about the things they’ll have in place for backup/recovery and fault tolerance. I hope they’ll be clear about recovery options and that they’ve planned and architected well to support recovery as needed. I hope Microsoft takes it on themselves to do software as a service as it needs to be done – to show others how it should be done.
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