Please know what Recovery Mode your databases are in and your recovery requirements and then back them up accordingly.

Too often I see databases that are in a Full or Bulk Logged recovery mode but do not have transaction log backups running.  If you’re not performing transaction log backups there really is no good reason to be in a Full or Bulk Logged Recovery Mode.

Below is a script that you can run against a single instance or if you use a Central Management Server ( See Brent Ozar’s post on CMS) that you can use as a starting point to provide information on your databases, what recovery mode then are in, and their most recent Full, Differential, and Transaction Log Backup Date/Time.  I’ve also included the databases “Updateability” and “UserAccess” as these settings would play a role in your backup strategy.

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SELECT 	A.dbid, A.name as [DatabaseName], 
		CONVERT(sysname,DATABASEPROPERTYEX(A.name, 'Recovery')) AS [RecoveryMode],
		(	SELECT	max(backup_finish_date) 
			FROM	msdb.dbo.backupset 
			WHERE	[type] = 'D' and 
					database_name = A.name) AS [LastFullBackupDateTime],
		(	SELECT	max(backup_finish_date) 
			FROM	msdb.dbo.backupset 
			WHERE	[type] = 'I' and 
					database_name = A.name) AS [LastDiffBackupDateTime],
		(	SELECT	max(backup_finish_date) 
			FROM	msdb.dbo.backupset 
			WHERE	[type] = 'L' and 
					database_name = A.name) AS [LastLogBackupDateTime],
		CONVERT(sysname,DATABASEPROPERTYEX(A.name, 'Updateability')) Updateability,
		CONVERT(sysname,DATABASEPROPERTYEX(A.name, 'UserAccess')) UserAccess
FROM 	master.dbo.sysdatabases A WITH(NOLOCK)
WHERE 	A.name NOT IN ('tempdb')
GROUP BY A.dbid, A.name
ORDER BY A.name

Policy Based Management is also a great way to alert you on databases that do not have an appropriate backup configuration but if you’re not quite “there” yet this is a good place to start until you bridge that gap.

 
Here is a quick description of each Recovery Mode’s backup capabilities:

Simple Recovery Mode

• Full Backups – Yes
• Differential Backups – Yes
• Transaction Log Backups are NOT available because transactions are truncated from the transaction log usually after each checkpoint

Bulk-Logged Recovery Mode

• Full Backups – Yes
• Differential Backups – Yes
• Transaction Log Backups – Yes (but Bulk Operations like BCP, Bulk Insert, etc are minimally logged)

Full Recovery Mode

• Full Backups – Yes
• Differential Backups – Yes
• Transaction Log Backups – Yes

Enjoy!!

SELECT *
FROM   dbo.sysfiles 
WHERE  (status & 0x40) <> 0

So if you’re like me and don’t have all the bit compares memorized for all the tables you probably didn’t know that this is how (in SQL 2000) you would query the current database to find all the transaction log files. 

Every now and again I take for granted the major jump that was SQL 2000 to SQL 2005 and little things like this just show me how much happier I am working in a SQL 2005/2008 environment. 

Let me channel my inner Naughty By Nature here:

You down with DMV…. yeah you know me
You down with DMV… yeah you know me

(Sorry I’m still hurting from not winning SQL Fool’s Rap Contest  )

DAMN YOU  My humble congratulations to Steve “Flavor Flav” Jones

Now if you were to come across this code:

SELECT * 

FROM   sys.database_files

WHERE  type_desc = 'LOG'



Wouldn’t you have a much better idea as to what the query is trying to accomplish?

Anyways just another (albeit small) reason why I’m glad to be leaving SQL 2000 in the past.

Enjoy!!

Bottom line… if you have a database that has it’s recovery mode set to BULK_LOGGED or FULL recovery mode you should be backing up your transaction log periodically.

Enjoy

DECLARE @num_of_days INT

CREATE TABLE #DatabaseListNotSimple (dbid INT IDENTITY(1,1), DatabaseName VARCHAR(50)) 

INSERT INTO #DatabaseListNotSimple

SELECT name AS ‘DatabaseName’

FROM MASTER.dbo.sysdatabases WITH(NOLOCK)

WHERE (CONVERT(VARCHAR(50),DATABASEPROPERTYEX(name,‘Recovery’))= ‘FULL’ OR

CONVERT(VARCHAR(50),DATABASEPROPERTYEX(name,‘Recovery’))= ‘BULK_LOGGED’) AND

name <> ‘model’ 

SELECT A.DatabaseName, MAX(B.backup_finish_date) AS ‘LastLogBackupDateTime’

FROM #DatabaseListNotSimple A LEFT OUTER JOIN

msdb.dbo.backupset B WITH(NOLOCK) ON A.DatabaseName = B.database_name

WHERE (B.TYPE = ‘L’ OR B.TYPE IS NULL)

GROUP BY A.DatabaseName

HAVING (MAX(B.backup_finish_date) < GETDATE() - @num_of_days OR

MAX(B.backup_finish_date) IS NULL) 

DROP TABLE #DatabaseListNotSimple

GO