Downtime refers to the time duration in which the SQL Server or the database is unavailable for the users. In SQL Server, you may face downtime due to various factors, like hardware failure, software failure, network issues, power outages, and corruption in the databases. Extended downtime can impact business continuity and lead to financial loss. So, it is crucial to restore the database, and get the services up and running as soon as possible in case of any issue with the server or the database. In this article, we will discuss some best practices that can help you to minimize SQL Server downtime by quick data restoration.
Best Practices to Minimize SQL Server Downtime
Here are some best practices that you can follow to minimize SQL Server downtime.
Create and Test Database Backups Regularly
Creating backups of SQL Server database can help in quick recovery of data in case of server failure or any other issue, thus minimizing the downtime. In SQL Server, you can take different types of database backups. Below, we will explain three common SQL database backups’ types:
- Full Backup: In this type of backup, a full backup of the entire SQL Server database is created. This is the best type of backup as it’s not dependent on any other backups. However, this type of backup takes a lot of time and storage.
- Differential Backup: In differential backup, a full backup is taken on the first run and then the backup of only the changes is taken from the previous backup. This type of backup doesn’t take much time as it only takes backup of changes done from the last backup.
- Transaction Log Backup: In transaction log backup, the backup of transaction logs is taken. It contains only the changes made to the database since the last transaction log backup. This type of backup helps in point-in-time database recovery.
You can also periodically perform test restore for backups to ensure that the backups are valid and can be successfully restored, when the need arises. This practice helps identify and fix issues, if any.
Use Failover Clustering
You can use failover clustering with SQL Server for disaster recovery and high availability. In failover clustering, a group of servers (nodes) collectively work to ensure availability of database and services. If any of the cluster node fails, all services hosted on that node will automatically transferred to another available node. This helps in minimizing downtime in case something happens.
Use Always On Availability Groups
You can use the Always On Availability group feature that helps in disaster recovery and high availability. The Always On Availability group feature replicates each database transaction on another SQL instance, configured as a failover cluster or in standalone mode, to enable database-level protection.
Use Database Mirroring
You can use the database mirroring feature in SQL Server for availability of database. In this, two exact replicas of a single database are maintained on different SQL server instances. In database mirroring, one instance acts as a principal server and the other remains in standby mode. In the event of a disaster, the standby copy of the database comes online, thus preventing downtime.
Enable Log Shipping
Log shipping is a disaster recovery solution, which allows copying transaction log files from one SQL Server instance to another. It allows to automatically copy transaction log backups from the primary database to multiple secondary SQL server instances. SQL log shipping involves three operations:
- Creating a transaction log backup on the primary SQL Server.
- Creating copies of the transaction log backup on one or more secondary servers.
- Restoring the transaction log backup on the secondary server.
Keep an MS SQL Recovery Tool Handy
In case of corruption in database, you can use the DBCC CHECKDB command to repair and restore the SQL database. However, this command may not bring the desired results in case of complex corruption issues and can also result in data loss. For quick recovery of data and minimizing the SQL Server downtime, you can keep a specialized SQL recovery tool in hand. One such tool is Stellar Repair for MS SQL. It can recover all the data, including indexes, foreign keys, etc., from corrupted databases with complete precision. It is a DIY application with an easy-to-use interface. It can repair MDF/NDF files of any size and from any version of SQL Server – 2022, 2019, 2017, 2016, 2014, 2012, and earlier. The tool is compatible with both Windows and Linux operating systems.
Conclusion
You can experience SQL Server downtime due to various known and unknown reasons. However, you can minimize the downtime by following the best practices mentioned in this guide. It is important to maintain regular database backups. These can come in handy in case of corruption or any other issue. It is also recommended that the backups are tested to ensure that they are usable and valid. If the backups are obsolete or not available, then the best option is to use an MS SQL recovery tool, such as Stellar Repair for MS SQL. This can help extract data from corrupt database and save it to a new database in just a few simple steps.