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  • Ways to recover data from external hard drive

    - by Howard Benson
    I use an external hard disk for backup of my mac with time machine (OS 10.5.8). I have made something wrong and I have found important folders in the recycler bin. These folders come from external hd. They are backup folders (backups.backupdb) and others. I have tried to restore them draggin and dropping. Some of them came back in the external hd in a while. For the others it takes hours to "preparing to copy" and then it has said "there's no space to copy" on ext hd. It's strange. Files are now in the recycle bin (180gb), and the ext had should have lot of free space. But it isn't really so. Ext hd is not free of space even if these files are in the bin. I ask for advices. I'm not also able to use time machine now (and i have "lost" old backups) for the same reason. Ext hd says that it has not free space.. Thanks

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  • Reliable backup software for windows network/samba shares.

    - by Eli
    Hi All, I have a Win2003 server that works as a pdc for a number of XP boxes, and a couple related FreeBSD boxes. I need to back up roaming profiles, non-roaming profiles via network shares, local hard drive data, and files on the FreeBSD boxes via samba shares. I have tried Genie Backup Manager and Backup4All pro, and both have excellent features, but both also begin to fail disastrously with more than a few days use. Mostly, the errors seem to have been from the backup catalog getting out of synch with itself. Whatever it is, there is no excuse for a backup software that says it backed up files when it really didn't, or the log saying it backed up exactly the same file 10,000 times in a single run, or flat-out crashing, or any of the other myriad problems I've run into with these. Really sad for products that fill such an important need. Anyway, does anyone know of a backup software that works reliably and can do the following? Scheduled backups for multiple jobs, without a user logged in. Backup from local hard drives or network shares. Incremental backups. Thanks! Edit: Selected solution: I've added my (hopefully final) solution as an answer.

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  • Difficulty restoring a differential backup in SQL Server, 2 media families are expected or no files are ready for rollforward

    - by digiguru
    I have sql backups copied from server A to server B on a nightly basis. We want to move the sql server from server A to server B without much downtime, but the files are very large. I assumed that performing a differential backup and restore would solve the problem with the databases. Copy full backup from server A to copy to server B (10+gb) Open SQL Server Managment Studio on server B Right mouse on databases Restore Database Type in the new DB-name Choose "From Device" and browse to the backup file Click Okay. This is now resorting the original "full" backup. Test new db with dev application - everything works :) On original database rightmouse on DB Tasks Backup... Backup Type = Differential, Backup to disk, add a new file, and remove the old one (it needs to be a small file to transfer for the smallest amount of outage) Copy the diff backup onto the new db Right mouse on DB Tasks Restore Database This is where I get stuck. If I add both the new differential file, and the original backup to the restore process I get an error The media loaded on "M:\path\to\backup\full.bak" is formatted to support 1 media families, but 2 media families are expected according to the backup device specification. RESTORE HEADERONLY is terminating abnormally. But if I try to restore using just the differential file I get System.Data.SqlClient.SqlError: The log or differential backup cannot be restored because no files are ready to rollforward. (Microsoft.SqlServer.Smo) Any idea how to do it? Is there a better way of restoring backups with limited downtime?

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  • Are ZFS snapshots + S3 a viable backup system for several VMs and general fileserver storage?

    - by AllanA
    I've been tasked with setting up a backup system for my small office (around 12 people). Most of our production stuff is on the AWS cloud, so what I need to back up are some small office/development files (under 100G right now), plus our operational VMs and development, which round out to a bit under 1T. I just need something reliable, convenient, and straightforward. I'm comfortable with Linux, FreeBSD, and to some extent Solaris 10, so I'm leaning toward a full server rather than an appliance system ala Openfiler or FreeNAS. What I'm contemplating is a small fileserver for general storage and nightly backups of the virtual machines, followed up by an offsite backup to Amazon's S3 storage service. It'd be the usual incremental backups nightly and full backup weekly. My question is if using ZFS snapshots, both locally and dumped to S3 via 'zfs send [-i]', is a viable backup tool? Or should I stick to using Duplicity, or some other method entirely? ZFS snapshots on the internal fileserver/backup machine sound like a perfect way to provide quick and convenient data recovery, so I'm likely to go with that for local redundancy. (If you folks see scenarios where relying on ZFS snapshots would be worse than a more traditional archiving backup, feel free to convince me.) But are snapshots flexible enough to lean on for recovery from the loss of my backup server? Or am I better off with something more traditional? (feel free to recommend free or commercial backup solutions you favor.)

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  • Managed LAMP platform for maximizing availability and global reach, not scalability

    - by user66819
    Assume a Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP application for a small base of registered users. With small userbase, there are no traffic peaks so the scalability that cloud platforms offer is not imperative. But the system is mission-critical, so availability is the primary goal. Users are also distributed across Asia, Europe, and US, so multiple server locations that minimize users' network hops would be highly desirable. The dream: a managed VPS platform where we would configure a single server (uploading PHP and other files, manipulating database, etc.), and the platform would automatically mirror the server in a handful of key places around the world (say one on each US coast, one in Europe, one in east Asia). File system synchronization and MySQL replication would happen automatically. Core operating system is managed, so we don't need to do full system administration and security, and low-level backups are also done by service provider, though we also do our own backups as well. Couple this with some sort of DNS geo-detection, so users are routed to the nearest operational server... with support for https, of course. Does such a dream exist? If not, what are some approaches to accomplish the same end with minimal time investment and minimal monthly hosting costs?

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  • How to (properly) back up a live QEMU/KVM VM?

    - by Roman
    I'm currently engineering a backup solution for KVM VM's as an additional measure to traditional backups. Unfortunately, all currently (August 2013) existing solutions I came across so far either: do not ensure a consistent backup of the VM (losing RAM state, creating a dirty image, or other things), or require lengthy downtime (complete VM shutdown while backing up). I'm aware of QEMU/libvirt's functionality of taking snapshots, however, it's not yet usable since: image-internal snapshots present you with an ever-changing image file, resulting in a likely dirty backup (assuming one uses qcow2 images at all). one cannot yet merge a currently active external snapshot into the original backing image ("blockcommit"). Out of the above reasons, I'm now implementing a script that: Saves the VM's state and halts it Sets up a devicemapper snapshot(s) where the VM's disk images and state reside Resumes the VM Mount the snapshot(s) of step 2. Backs up the VM's disk and state (configuration for convenience) Merges back the snapshot(s). If I got everything right, this will take consistent backups of VM's with only seconds (if at all, since 1-3 is fast, possibly sub-second) of downtime. Of course, when restoring, the VM will be way in the past, but at least giving me the option of an orderly shutdown/reboot. Am I missing something with this solution? Or has someone indeed already implemented this?

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  • Disaster Recovery Standby Server

    - by user64300
    Hi, I work for a small business with 25 users and 2 servers. 1 server is the DC running Windows Server 2003/Exchange 2003. We want a reliable disaster recovery strategy for this server without having to spend a lot of money. We take regular backups but I have been advised that only an identical server will allow them to be restored easily. I'm trying to come up with a solution that means we don't have to buy two servers at twice the cost everytime we upgrade. I'm toying with the idea of upgrading our DC more frequently (say every 3 years) and then using the old server as the recovery server (temporarily - until we can source a replacement server). However, I won't know whether the backups will restore on the old server until I try it! We're planning to upgrade to Server 2008R2 in the near future so I'm hoping the backup tools will give me some success in restoring to different hardware (or perhaps I can use hyper-v if not). So what I am wondering is whether it is a idea to use old hardware as a disaster recovery strategy (providing we regular test it obviously!).

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  • SQL Server Replication Backup

    - by user18039
    Hi We have a new system that runs on SQL Server 2008 r2 64-bit. There is a primary on-line transactional processing (OLTP) database that accepts a high volume of updates from several thousand Point of Sale systems at stores around the country. In order to protect this vital function, I have decided to introduce a dedicated reporting database server - from which multiple users will run some pretty complex reports. I realise that there were a number of choices but I decided to use Transaction Replication as the mechanism for copying the data from the OLTP database to the new reporting database - one way replication. The solution has worked well in test. I'm now being asked what changes need to be made to the backup policy to cover the architectural changes. I have read pages such as MSDN:Strategies for Backing Up and Restoring Snapshot and Transactional Replication but I think these are overkill for my solution. In fact, my current thinking is that we simply need to continue making backups of the OLTP data and logs. If the Reporting db or any of the system replication (eg distribution) databases fail then it's no big deal - we can clear all down then re-create the replication. I realise that taking a complete snapshot of the OLTP would be time consuming (approx 5 hours) but I'd be more relaxed about this that trying to restore backups of the various data and log files in the correct sequence. My view is that the complex strategies set out in the MSDN article would only be the way to go for a more complex replication solution than I have, eg if there were multiple subscribers with 2-way replication. Would you agree? I'd be grateful for any advice. Many thanks, Rob.,

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  • How to backup Servers to an SSH-Host with low traffic and access to versions and encryption?

    - by leto
    Hello, I've not run backups for the past dont't remember anymore years for my personal stuff until waking up lately and realising contrary to my prior belief: Actually. I care! :) Now I have a central data server at home where I want to attach an external media to, to which I want to save backups of my most important stuff, like years of self-written scripts, database dumps, you name it. I've tinkered with rsync+ssh over the last two years, also tried tar over ssh, but don't know the simplest and most easy to maintain way to do it yet. Heres my workload: A typical LAMP-Server (<5GB Data) which I'd like to backup fully so lots of small files connected via 10Mbit My personal stuff (<750GB Data) from a Mac connected via GE My passwords in an encrypted container (100Mb) from OpenBSD connected via serial-PPP My E-Mail from the last ten years (<25GB) as Maildir which I need to keep in readable format Some archives (tar.*) which I need to backup only once and keep in readable format (Deleted my ideas, as I'm here for suggestions) What I need: 1. Use an ssh-tunnel for data transfer 2. Be quick with lots of small files 3. Keep revisions 4. Be sure the data I save is not corrupted 5. Intelligent resume functions and be able to deal with network congestion :) 6. Compressed and optionally encrypted storage 7. Be able to extract data from backup easily (filesystem like usage would be nice) How would and with what software would you backup this stuff? Hints to tools that can help solve only part of my problem (like encryption) also greatly appreciated. Greets

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  • How to make a redundant desktop system with daily snapshots? (Is btrfs ready for use?)

    - by TestUser16418
    I want to configure a desktop system in which the home filesystem would be redundant (e.g. RAID-1), and would have weekly snapshots taken. I've already done this with ZFS, the snapshot system is wonderful, and with send/recv you can easily create backups on external media. Unfortunately, at that point, I want GNU+Linux and not FreeBSD or Solaris, so I'm looking for suggestions for good alternatives. I reckon that my alternatives are: btrfs - it seems to be exactly what I need, it has snapshots and commands that allow you to easily replicate zfs send. Yet all documentation mentions that it's still experimental. I can't seem to find any actual reports on its reliability or usability issues. Can you point me to any information on that issue that could clarify whether it would be a possible choice? I have a large preference for this option, mostly because I don't want to reformat the drives when btrfs becomes ready, but I there's no information on whether it's usable at all, whether it's a silly idea to use it, etc. The question that I cannot get the answer to is what does "experimental" mean. lvm snapshots and ext4 - preferably not, since it can consume an awful amount of space when new files are created. Creating 200 GB files requres 200 GB free space and 200 GB additionally for snapshots. I also have found it unreliable -- failed metadata rewrite results in an unreadable PV. I'm wondering how btrfs would compare here. A single filesystem (ext4) on a RAID-1 array with custom COW snapshots with hardlinks (like cp -al). That's my current preference if I can't use btrfs. So how experimental btrfs is, which should I choose, and do I have any other options? What if I don't keep external incremental backups, would that affect my choice?

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  • Upgrading Team Foundation Server 2008 to 2010

    - by Martin Hinshelwood
    I am sure you will have seen my posts on upgrading our internal Team Foundation Server from TFS2008 to TFS2010 Beta 2, RC and RTM, but what about a fresh upgrade of TFS2008 to TFS2010 using the RTM version of TFS. One of our clients is taking the plunge with TFS2010, so I have the job of doing the upgrade. It is sometimes very useful to have a team member that starts work when most of the Sydney workers are heading home as I can do the upgrade without impacting them. The down side is that if you have any blockers then you can be pretty sure that everyone that can deal with your problem is asleep I am starting with an existing blank installation of TFS 2010, but Adam Cogan let slip that he was the one that did the install so I thought it prudent to make sure that it was OK. Verifying Team Foundation Server 2010 We need to check that TFS 2010 has been installed correctly. First, check the Admin console and have a root about for any errors. Figure: Even the SQL Setup looks good. I don’t know how Adam did it! Backing up the Team Foundation Server 2008 Databases As we are moving from one server to another (recommended method) we will be taking a backup of our TFS2008 databases and resorting them to the SQL Server for the new TFS2010 Server. Do not just detach and reattach. This will cause problems with the version of the database. If you are running a test migration you just need to create a backup of the TFS 2008 databases, but if you are doing the live migration then you should stop IIS on the TFS 2008 server before you backup the databases. This will stop any inadvertent check-ins or changes to TFS 2008. Figure: Stop IIS before you take a backup to prevent any TFS 2008 changes being written to the database. It is good to leave a little time between taking the TFS 2008 server offline and commencing the upgrade as there is always one developer who has not finished and starts screaming. This time it was John Liu that needed 10 more minutes to make his changes and check-in, so I always give it 30 minutes and see if anyone screams. John Liu [SSW] said:   are you doing something to TFS :-O MrHinsh [SSW UK][VS ALM MVP] said:   I have stopped TFS 2008 as per my emails John Liu [SSW] said:   haven't finish check in @_@   can we have it for 10mins? :) MrHinsh [SSW UK][VS ALM MVP] said:   TFS 2008 has been started John Liu [SSW] said:   I love you! -IM conversation at TFS Upgrade +25 minutes After John confirmed that he had everything done I turned IIS off again and made a cup of tea. There were no more screams so the upgrade can continue. Figure: Backup all of the databases for TFS and include the Reporting Services, just in case.   Figure: Check that all the backups have been taken Once you have your backups, you need to copy them to your new TFS2010 server and restore them. This is a good way to proceed as if we have any problems, or just plain run out of time, then you just turn the TFS 2008 server back on and all you have lost is one upgrade day, and not 10 developer days. As per the rules, you should record the number of files and the total number of areas and iterations before the upgrade so you have something to compare to: TFS2008 File count: Type Count 1 1845 2 15770 Areas & Iterations: 139 You can use this to verify that the upgrade was successful. it should however be noted that the numbers in TFS 2010 will be bigger. This is due to some of the sorting out that TFS does during the upgrade process. Restore Team Foundation Server 2008 Databases Restoring the databases is much more time consuming than just attaching them as you need to do them one at a time. But you may be taking a backup of an operational database and need to restore all your databases to a particular point in time instead of to the latest. I am doing latest unless I encounter any problems. Figure: Restore each of the databases to either a latest or specific point in time.     Figure: Restore all of the required databases Now that all of your databases are restored you now need to upgrade them to Team Foundation Server 2010. Upgrade Team Foundation Server 2008 Databases This is probably the easiest part of the process. You need to call a fire and forget command that will go off to the database specified, find the TFS 2008 databases and upgrade them to 2010. During this process all of the 6 main TFS 2008 databases are merged into the TfsVersionControl database, upgraded and then the database is renamed to TFS_[CollectionName]. The rename is only the database and not the physical files, so it is worth going back and renaming the physical file as well. This keeps everything neat and tidy. If you plan to keep the old TFS 2008 server around, for example if you are doing a test migration first, then you will need to change the TFS GUID. This GUID is unique to each TFS instance and is preserved when you upgrade. This GUID is used by the clients and they can get a little confused if there are two servers with the same one. To kick of the upgrade you need to open a command prompt and change the path to “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2010\Tools” and run the “import” command in  “tfsconfig”. TfsConfig import /sqlinstance:<Previous TFS Data Tier>                  /collectionName:<Collection Name>                  /confirmed Imports a TFS 2005 or 2008 data tier as a new project collection. Important: This command should only be executed after adequate backups have been performed. After you import, you will need to configure portal and reporting settings via the administration console. EXAMPLES -------- TfsConfig import /sqlinstance:tfs2008sql /collectionName:imported /confirmed TfsConfig import /sqlinstance:tfs2008sql\Instance /collectionName:imported /confirmed OPTIONS: -------- sqlinstance         The sql instance of the TFS 2005 or 2008 data tier. The TFS databases at that location will be modified directly and will no longer be usable as previous version databases.  Ensure you have back-ups. collectionName      The name of the new Team Project Collection. confirmed           Confirm that you have backed-up databases before importing. This command will automatically look for the TfsIntegration database and verify that all the other required databases exist. In this case it took around 5 minutes to complete the upgrade as the total database size was under 700MB. This was unlike the upgrade of SSW’s production database with over 17GB of data which took a few hours. At the end of the process you should get no errors and no warnings. The Upgrade operation on the ApplicationTier feature has completed. There were 0 errors and 0 warnings. As this is a new server and not a pure upgrade there should not be a problem with the GUID. If you think at any point you will be doing this more than once, for example doing a test migration, or merging many TFS 2008 instances into a single one, then you should go back and rename the physical TfsVersionControl.mdf file to the same as the new collection. This will avoid confusion later down the line. To do this, detach the new collection from the server and rename the physical files. Then reattach and change the physical file locations to match the new name. You can follow http://www.mssqltips.com/tip.asp?tip=1122 for a more detailed explanation of how to do this. Figure: Stop the collection so TFS does not take a wobbly when we detach the database. When you try to start the new collection again you will get a conflict with project names and will require to remove the Test Upgrade collection. This is fine and it just needs detached. Figure: Detaching the test upgrade from the new Team Foundation Server 2010 so we can start the new Collection again. You will now be able to start the new upgraded collection and you are ready for testing. Do you remember the stats we took off the TFS 2008 server? TFS2008 File count: Type Count 1 1845 2 15770 Areas & Iterations: 139 Well, now we need to compare them to the TFS 2010 stats, remembering that there will probably be more files under source control. TFS2010 File count: Type Count 1 19288 Areas & Iterations: 139 Lovely, the number of iterations are the same, and the number of files is bigger. Just what we were looking for. Testing the upgraded Team Foundation Server 2010 Project Collection Can we connect to the new collection and project? Figure: We can connect to the new collection and project.   Figure: make sure you can connect to The upgraded projects and that you can see all of the files. Figure: Team Web Access is there and working. Note that for Team Web Access you now use the same port and URL as for TFS 2010. So in this case as I am running on the local box you need to use http://localhost:8080/tfs which will redirect you to http://localhost:8080/tfs/web for the web access. If you need to connect with a Visual Studio 2008 client you will need to use the full path of the new collection, http://[servername]/tfs/[collectionname] and this will work with all of your collections. With Visual Studio 2005 you will only be able to connect to the Default collection and in both VS2008 and VS2005 you will need to install the forward compatibility updates. Visual Studio Team System 2005 Service Pack 1 Forward Compatibility Update for Team Foundation Server 2010 Visual Studio Team System 2008 Service Pack 1 Forward Compatibility Update for Team Foundation Server 2010 To make sure that you have everything up to date, make sure that you run SSW Diagnostics and get all green ticks. Upgrade Done! At this point you can send out a notice to everyone that the upgrade is complete and and give them the connection details. You need to remember that at this stage we have 2008 project upgraded to run under TFS 2010 but it is still running under that same process template that it was running before. You can only “enable” 2010 features in a process template you can’t upgrade. So what to do? Well, you need to create a new project and migrate things you want to keep across. Souse code is easy, you can move or Branch, but Work Items are more difficult as you can’t move them between projects. This instance is complicated more as the old project uses the Conchango/EMC Scrum for Team System template and I will need to write a script/application to get the work items across with their attachments in tact. That is my next task! Technorati Tags: TFS 2010,TFS 2008,VS ALM

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  • Backing up my Windows Home Server to the Cloud&hellip;

    - by eddraper
    Ok, here’s my scenario: Windows Home Server with a little over 3TB of storage.  This includes many years of our home network’s PC backups, music, videos, etcetera. I’d like to get a backup off-site, and the existing APIs and apps such as CloudBerry Labs WHS Backup service are making it easy.  Now, all it’s down to is vendor and the cost of the actual storage.   So,  I thought I’d take a lazy Saturday morning and do some research on this and get the ball rolling.  What I discovered stunned me…   First off, the pricing for just about everything was loaded with complexity.  I learned that it wasn’t just about storage… it was about network usage, requests, sites, replication, and on and on. I really don’t see this as rocket science.  I have a disk image.  I want to put it in the cloud.  I’m not going to be be using it but once daily for incremental backups.  Sounds like a common scenario.  Yes, if “things get real” and my server goes down, I will need to bring down a lot of data and utilize a fair amount of vendor infrastructure.  However, this may never happen.  Offsite storage is an insurance policy.   The complexity of the cost structures, perhaps by design, create an environment where it’s incredibly hard to model bottom line costs and compare vendor all-up pricing.  As it is a “lazy Saturday morning,” I’m not in the mood for such antics and I decide to shirk the endeavor entirely.  Thus, I decided to simply fire up calc.exe and do some a simple arithmetic model based on price per GB.  I shuddered at the results.  Certainly something was wrong… did I misplace a decimal point?  Then I discovered CloudBerry’s own calculator.   Nope, I hadn’t misplaced those decimals after all.  Check it out (pricing based on 3174 GB):   Amazon S3 $398.00 per month $4761 per year Azure $396.75 per month $4761 per year Google $380.88 per month $4570.56 per year   Conclusion: Rampant crack smoking at vendors.  Seriously.  Out. Of. Their. Minds. Now, to Amazon’s credit, vision, and outright common sense, they had one offering which directly addresses my scenario:   Amazon Glacier $31.74 per month $380.88 per year   hmmm… It’s on the table.  Let’s see what it would cost to just buy some drives, an enclosure and cart them over to a friend’s house.   2 x 2TB Drives from NewEgg.com $199.99   Enclosure $39.99     $239.98   Carting data to back and forth to friend’s within walking distance pain   Leave drive unplugged at friend’s $0 for electricity   Possible data loss No way I can come and go every day.     I think I’ll think on this a bit more…

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  • Windows Azure Use Case: Agility

    - by BuckWoody
    This is one in a series of posts on when and where to use a distributed architecture design in your organization's computing needs. You can find the main post here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckwoody/archive/2011/01/18/windows-azure-and-sql-azure-use-cases.aspx  Description: Agility in this context is defined as the ability to quickly develop and deploy an application. In theory, the speed at which your organization can develop and deploy an application on available hardware is identical to what you could deploy in a distributed environment. But in practice, this is not always the case. Having an option to use a distributed environment can be much faster for the deployment and even the development process. Implementation: When an organization designs code, they are essentially becoming a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) provider to their own organization. To do that, the IT operations team becomes the Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) to the development teams. From there, the software is developed and deployed using an Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) process. A simplified view of an ALM process is as follows: Requirements Analysis Design and Development Implementation Testing Deployment to Production Maintenance In an on-premise environment, this often equates to the following process map: Requirements Business requirements formed by Business Analysts, Developers and Data Professionals. Analysis Feasibility studies, including physical plant, security, manpower and other resources. Request is placed on the work task list if approved. Design and Development Code written according to organization’s chosen methodology, either on-premise or to multiple development teams on and off premise. Implementation Code checked into main branch. Code forked as needed. Testing Code deployed to on-premise Testing servers. If no server capacity available, more resources procured through standard budgeting and ordering processes. Manual and automated functional, load, security, etc. performed. Deployment to Production Server team involved to select platform and environments with available capacity. If no server capacity available, standard budgeting and procurement process followed. If no server capacity available, systems built, configured and put under standard organizational IT control. Systems configured for proper operating systems, patches, security and virus scans. System maintenance, HA/DR, backups and recovery plans configured and put into place. Maintenance Code changes evaluated and altered according to need. In a distributed computing environment like Windows Azure, the process maps a bit differently: Requirements Business requirements formed by Business Analysts, Developers and Data Professionals. Analysis Feasibility studies, including budget, security, manpower and other resources. Request is placed on the work task list if approved. Design and Development Code written according to organization’s chosen methodology, either on-premise or to multiple development teams on and off premise. Implementation Code checked into main branch. Code forked as needed. Testing Code deployed to Azure. Manual and automated functional, load, security, etc. performed. Deployment to Production Code deployed to Azure. Point in time backup and recovery plans configured and put into place.(HA/DR and automated backups already present in Azure fabric) Maintenance Code changes evaluated and altered according to need. This means that several steps can be removed or expedited. It also means that the business function requesting the application can be held directly responsible for the funding of that request, speeding the process further since the IT budgeting process may not be involved in the Azure scenario. An additional benefit is the “Azure Marketplace”, In effect this becomes an app store for Enterprises to select pre-defined code and data applications to mesh or bolt-in to their current code, possibly saving development time. Resources: Whitepaper download- What is ALM?  http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9743693  Whitepaper download - ALM and Business Strategy: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9743690  LiveMeeting Recording on ALM and Windows Azure (registration required, but free): http://www.microsoft.com/uk/msdn/visualstudio/contact-us.aspx?sbj=Developing with Windows Azure (ALM perspective) - 10:00-11:00 - 19th Jan 2011

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  • Don&rsquo;t Kill the Password

    - by Anthony Trudeau
    A week ago Mr. Honan from Wired.com penned an article on security he titled “Kill the Password: Why a String of Characters Can’t Protect Us Anymore.” He asserts that the password is not effective and a new solution is needed. Unfortunately, Mr. Honan was a victim of hacking. As a result he has a victim’s vendetta. His conclusion is ill conceived even though there are smatterings of truth and good advice. The password is a security barrier much like a lock on your door. In of itself it’s not guaranteeing protection. You can have a good password akin to a steel reinforced door with the best lock money can buy, or you can have a poor password like “password” which is like a sliding lock like on a bathroom stall. But, just like in the real world a lock isn’t always enough. You can have a lock, security system, video cameras, guard dogs, and even armed security guards; but none of that guarantees your protection. Even top secret government agencies can be breached by someone who is just that good (as dramatized in movies like Mission Impossible). And that’s the crux of it. There are real hackers out there that are that good. Killer coding ninja monkeys do exist! We still have locks on our doors, because they still serve their role. Passwords are no different. Security doesn’t end with the password. Most people would agree that stuffing your mattress with your life savings isn’t a good idea even if you have the best locks and security system. Most people agree its safest to have the money in a bank. Essentially this is compartmentalization. Compartmentalization extends to the online world as well. You’re at risk if your online banking accounts are linked to the same account as your social networks. This is especially true if you’re lackadaisical about linking those social networks to outside sources including apps. The object here is to minimize the damage that can be done. An attacker should not be able to get into your bank account, because they breached your Twitter account. It’s time to prioritize once you’ve compartmentalized. This simply means deciding how much security you want for the different compartments which I’ll call security zones. Social networking applications like Facebook provide a lot of security features. However, security features are almost always a compromise with privacy and convenience. It’s similar to an engineering adage, but in this case it’s security, convenience, and privacy – pick two. For example, you might use a safe instead of bank to store your money, because the convenience of having your money closer or the privacy of not having the bank records is more important than the added security. The following are lists of security do’s and don’ts (these aren’t meant to be exhaustive and each could be an article in of themselves): Security Do’s: Use strong passwords based on a phrase Use encryption whenever you can (e.g. HTTPS in Facebook) Use a firewall (and learn to use it properly) Configure security on your router (including port blocking) Keep your operating system patched Make routine backups of important files Realize that if you’re not paying for it, you’re the product Security Don’ts Link accounts if at all possible Reuse passwords across your security zones Use real answers for security questions (e.g. mother’s maiden name) Trust anything you download Ignore message boxes shown by your system or browser Forget to test your backups Share your primary email indiscriminately Only you can decide your comfort level between convenience, privacy, and security. Attackers are going to find exploits in software. Software is complex and depends on other software. The exploits are the responsibility of the software company. But your security is always your responsibility. Complete security is an illusion. But, there is plenty you can do to minimize the risk online just like you do in the physical world. Be safe and enjoy what the Internet has to offer. I expect passwords to be necessary just as long as locks.

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  • SQL SERVER – How to Roll Back SQL Server Database Changes

    - by Pinal Dave
    In a perfect scenario, no unexpected and unplanned changes occur. There are no unpleasant surprises, no inadvertent changes. However, even with all precautions and testing, there is sometimes a need to revert a structure or data change. One of the methods that can be used in this situation is to use an older database backup that has the records or database object structure you want to revert to. For this method, you have to have the adequate full database backup and a tool that will help you with comparison and synchronization is preferred. In this article, we will focus on another method: rolling back the changes. This can be done by using: An option in SQL Server Management Studio T-SQL, or ApexSQL Log The first two solutions have been described in this article The disadvantages of these methods are that you have to know when exactly the change you want to revert happened and that all transactions on the database executed in a specific time range are rolled back – the ones you want to undo and the ones you don’t. How to easily roll back SQL Server database changes using ApexSQL Log? The biggest challenge is to roll back just specific changes, not all changes that happened in a specific time range. While SQL Server Management Studio option and T-SQL read and roll forward all transactions in the transaction log files, I will show you a solution that finds and scripts only the specific changes that match your criteria. Therefore, you don’t need to worry about all other database changes that you don’t want to roll back. ApexSQL Log is a SQL Server disaster recovery tool that reads transaction logs and provides a wide range of filters that enable you to easily rollback only specific data changes. First, connect to the online database where you want to roll back the changes. Once you select the database, ApexSQL Log will show its recovery model. Note that changes can be rolled back even for a database in the Simple recovery model, when no database and transaction log backups are available. However, ApexSQL Log achieves best results when the database is in the Full recovery model and you have a chain of subsequent transaction log backups, back to the moment when the change occurred. In this example, we will use only the online transaction log. In the next step, use filters to read only the transactions that happened in a specific time range. To remove noise, it’s recommended to use as many filters as possible. Besides filtering by the time of the transaction, ApexSQL Log can filter by the operation type: Table name: As well as transaction state (committed, aborted, running, and unknown), name of the user who committed the change, specific field values, server process IDs, and transaction description. You can select only the tables affected by the changes you want to roll back. However, if you’re not certain which tables were affected, you can leave them all selected and once the results are shown in the main grid, analyze them to find the ones you to roll back. When you set the filters, you can select how to present the results. ApexSQL Log can automatically create undo or redo scripts, export the transactions into an XML, HTML, CSV, SQL, or SQL Bulk file, and create a batch file that you can use for unattended transaction log reading. In this example, I will open the results in the grid, as I want to analyze them before rolling back the transactions. The results contain information about the transaction, as well as who and when made it. For UPDATEs, ApexSQL Log shows both old and new values, so you can easily see what has happened. To create an UNDO script that rolls back the changes, select the transactions you want to roll back and click Create undo script in the menu. For the DELETE statement selected in the screenshot above, the undo script is: INSERT INTO [Sales].[PersonCreditCard] ([BusinessEntityID], [CreditCardID], [ModifiedDate]) VALUES (297, 8010, '20050901 00:00:00.000') When it comes to rolling back database changes, ApexSQL Log has a big advantage, as it rolls back only specific transactions, while leaving all other transactions that occurred at the same time range intact. That makes ApexSQL Log a good solution for rolling back inadvertent data and schema changes on your SQL Server databases. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL Tagged: ApexSQL

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  • Oracle MAA Part 1: When One Size Does Not Fit All

    - by JoeMeeks
    The good news is that Oracle Maximum Availability Architecture (MAA) best practices combined with Oracle Database 12c (see video) introduce first-in-the-industry database capabilities that truly make unplanned outages and planned maintenance transparent to users. The trouble with such good news is that Oracle’s enthusiasm in evangelizing its latest innovations may leave some to wonder if we’ve lost sight of the fact that not all database applications are created equal. Afterall, many databases don’t have the business requirements for high availability and data protection that require all of Oracle’s ‘stuff’. For many real world applications, a controlled amount of downtime and/or data loss is OK if it saves money and effort. Well, not to worry. Oracle knows that enterprises need solutions that address the full continuum of requirements for data protection and availability. Oracle MAA accomplishes this by defining four HA service level tiers: BRONZE, SILVER, GOLD and PLATINUM. The figure below shows the progression in service levels provided by each tier. Each tier uses a different MAA reference architecture to deploy the optimal set of Oracle HA capabilities that reliably achieve a given service level (SLA) at the lowest cost.  Each tier includes all of the capabilities of the previous tier and builds upon the architecture to handle an expanded fault domain. Bronze is appropriate for databases where simple restart or restore from backup is ‘HA enough’. Bronze is based upon a single instance Oracle Database with MAA best practices that use the many capabilities for data protection and HA included with every Oracle Enterprise Edition license. Oracle-optimized backups using Oracle Recovery Manager (RMAN) provide data protection and are used to restore availability should an outage prevent the database from being able to restart. Silver provides an additional level of HA for databases that require minimal or zero downtime in the event of database instance or server failure as well as many types of planned maintenance. Silver adds clustering technology - either Oracle RAC or RAC One Node. RMAN provides database-optimized backups to protect data and restore availability should an outage prevent the cluster from being able to restart. Gold raises the game substantially for business critical applications that can’t accept vulnerability to single points-of-failure. Gold adds database-aware replication technologies, Active Data Guard and Oracle GoldenGate, which synchronize one or more replicas of the production database to provide real time data protection and availability. Database-aware replication greatly increases HA and data protection beyond what is possible with storage replication technologies. It also reduces cost while improving return on investment by actively utilizing all replicas at all times. Platinum introduces all of the sexy new Oracle Database 12c capabilities that Oracle staff will gush over with great enthusiasm. These capabilities include Application Continuity for reliable replay of in-flight transactions that masks outages from users; Active Data Guard Far Sync for zero data loss protection at any distance; new Oracle GoldenGate enhancements for zero downtime upgrades and migrations; and Global Data Services for automated service management and workload balancing in replicated database environments. Each of these technologies requires additional effort to implement. But they deliver substantial value for your most critical applications where downtime and data loss are not an option. The MAA reference architectures are inherently designed to address conflicting realities. On one hand, not every application has the same objectives for availability and data protection – the Not One Size Fits All title of this blog post. On the other hand, standard infrastructure is an operational requirement and a business necessity in order to reduce complexity and cost. MAA reference architectures address both realities by providing a standard infrastructure optimized for Oracle Database that enables you to dial-in the level of HA appropriate for different service level requirements. This makes it simple to move a database from one HA tier to the next should business requirements change, or from one hardware platform to another – whether it’s your favorite non-Oracle vendor or an Oracle Engineered System. Please stay tuned for additional blog posts in this series that dive into the details of each MAA reference architecture. Meanwhile, more information on Oracle HA solutions and the Maximum Availability Architecture can be found at: Oracle Maximum Availability Architecture - Webcast Maximize Availability with Oracle Database 12c - Technical White Paper

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  • Script throwing unexpected operator when using mysqldump

    - by Astron
    A portion of a script I use to backup MySQL databases has stopped working correctly after upgrading a Debian box to 6.0 Squeeze. I have tested the backup code via CLI and it works fine. I believe it is in the selection of the databases before the backup occurs, possibly something to do with the $skipdb variable. If there is a better way to perform the function then I'm will to try something new. Any insight would be greatly appreciated. $ sudo ./script.sh [: 138: information_schema: unexpected operator [: 138: -1: unexpected operator [: 138: mysql: unexpected operator [: 138: -1: unexpected operator Using bash -x script here is one of the iterations: + for db in '$DBS' + skipdb=-1 + '[' test '!=' '' ']' + for i in '$IGGY' + '[' mysql == test ']' + : + '[' -1 == -1 ']' ++ /bin/date +%F + FILE=/backups/hostname.2011-03-20.mysql.mysql.tar.gz + '[' no = yes ']' + /usr/bin/mysqldump --single-transaction -u root -h localhost '-ppassword' mysql + /bin/tar -czvf /backups/hostname.2011-03-20.mysql.mysql.tar.gz mysql.sql mysql.sql + rm -f mysql.sql Here is the code. if [ $MYSQL_UP = "yes" ]; then echo "MySQL DUMP" >> /tmp/update.log echo "--------------------------------" >> /tmp/update.log DBS="$($MYSQL -u $MyUSER -h $MyHOST -p"$MyPASS" -Bse 'show databases')" for db in $DBS do skipdb=-1 if [ "$IGGY" != "" ] ; then for i in $IGGY do [ "$db" == "$i" ] && skipdb=1 || : done fi if [ "$skipdb" == "-1" ] ; then FILE="$DEST$HOST.`$DATE +"%F"`.$db.mysql.tar.gz" if [ $ENCRYPT = "yes" ]; then $MYSQLDUMP -u $MyUSER -h $MyHOST -p"$MyPASS" $db > $db.sql && $TAR -czvf - $db.sql | $OPENSSL enc -aes-256-cbc -salt -out $FILE.enc -k $ENC_PASS && rm -f $db.sql else $MYSQLDUMP --single-transaction -u $MyUSER -h $MyHOST -p"$MyPASS" $db > $db.sql && $TAR -czvf $FILE $db.sql && rm -f $db.sql fi fi done fi

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  • S3 Backup Memory Usage in Python

    - by danpalmer
    I currently use WebFaction for my hosting with the basic package that gives us 80MB of RAM. This is more than adequate for our needs at the moment, apart from our backups. We do our own backups to S3 once a day. The backup process is this: dump the database, tar.gz all the files into one backup named with the correct date of the backup, upload to S3 using the python library provided by Amazon. Unfortunately, it appears (although I don't know this for certain) that either my code for reading the file or the S3 code is loading the entire file in to memory. As the file is approximately 320MB (for today's backup) it is using about 320MB just for the backup. This causes WebFaction to quit all our processes meaning the backup doesn't happen and our site goes down. So this is the question: Is there any way to not load the whole file in to memory, or are there any other python S3 libraries that are much better with RAM usage. Ideally it needs to be about 60MB at the most! If this can't be done, how can I split the file and upload separate parts? Thanks for your help. This is the section of code (in my backup script) that caused the processes to be quit: filedata = open(filename, 'rb').read() content_type = mimetypes.guess_type(filename)[0] if not content_type: content_type = 'text/plain' print 'Uploading to S3...' response = connection.put(BUCKET_NAME, 'daily/%s' % filename, S3.S3Object(filedata), {'x-amz-acl': 'public-read', 'Content-Type': content_type})

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  • SQL Server 2008 - Shrinking the Transaction Log - Any way to automate?

    - by Albert
    I went in and checked my Transaction log the other day and it was something crazy like 15GB. I ran the following code: USE mydb GO BACKUP LOG mydb WITH TRUNCATE_ONLY GO DBCC SHRINKFILE(mydb_log,8) GO Which worked fine, shrank it down to 8MB...but the DB in question is a Log Shipping Publisher, and the log is already back up to some 500MB and growing quick. Is there any way to automate this log shrinking, outside of creating a custom "Execute T-SQL Statement Task" Maintenance Plan Task, and hooking it on to my log backup task? If that's the best way then fine...but I was just thinking that SQL Server would have a better way of dealing with this. I thought it was supposed to shrink automatically whenever you took a log backup, but that's not happening (perhaps because of my log shipping, I don't know). Here's my current backup plan: Full backups every night Transaction log backups once a day, late morning (maybe hook the Log shrinking onto this...doesn't need to be shrank every day though) Or maybe I just run it once a week, after I run a full backup task? What do you all think?

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  • Cleaning up a sparsebundle with a script

    - by nickg
    I'm using time machine to backup some servers to a sparse disk image bundle and I'd like to have a script to clean up the old back ups and re-size the image once space has been freed up. I'm fairly certain the data is protected because if I delete the old backups by right clicking, I have to enter a password to be able to delete them. To allow my script to be able to delete them, I've been running it as root. For some reason, it just won't run and every file it tries to delete I get rm: /file/: Operation not permitted Here is what I have as my script: #!/bin/bash for server in servername; do /usr/bin/hdiutil attach -mountpoint /path/to/mountpoint /path/to/sparsebundle/$server.sparsebundle/; /bin/sleep 10; /usr/bin/find /path/to/mountpoint -type d -mtime +7 -exec /bin/rm -rf {} \; /usr/bin/hdiutil unmount /path/to/mountpoint; /bin/sleep 10; /usr/bin/hdiutil compact /path/to/sparsebundle/$server.sparsebundle/; done exit; One of the problems I thought was causing this was it needed to have a mountpoint specified since the default mount was to /Volumes/Time\ Machine\ Backups/ that's why I created a mountpoint. I also thought that it was trying to delete the files to quickly after mounting and it wasn't actually mounted yet, that's why I added the sleep. I've also tried using the -delete option for find instead of -exec, but it didn't make any difference. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated because I'm out of ideas as to why this won't work.

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  • What's the best Linux backup solution?

    - by Jon Bright
    We have a four Linux boxes (all running Debian or Ubuntu) on our office network. None of these boxes are especially critical and they're all using RAID. To date, I've therefore been doing backups of the boxes by having a cron job upload tarballs containing the contents of /etc, MySQL dumps and other such changing, non-packaged data to a box at our geographically separate hosting centre. I've realised, however that the tarballs are sufficient to rebuild from, but it's certainly not a painless process to do so (I recently tried this out as part of a hardware upgrade of one of the boxes) long-term, the process isn't sustainable. Each of the boxes is currently producing a tarball of a couple of hundred MB each day, 99% of which is the same as the previous day partly due to the size issue, the backup process requires more manual intervention than I want (to find whatever 5GB file is inflating the size of the tarball and kill it) again due to the size issue, I'm leaving stuff out which it would be nice to include - the contents of users' home directories, for example. There's almost nothing of value there that isn't in source control (and these aren't our main dev boxes), but it would be nice to keep them anyway. there must be a better way So, my question is, how should I be doing this properly? The requirements are: needs to be an offsite backup (one of the main things I'm doing here is protecting against fire/whatever) should require as little manual intervention as possible (I'm lazy, and box-herding isn't my main job) should continue to scale with a couple more boxes, slightly more data, etc. preferably free/open source (cost isn't the issue, but especially for backups, openness seems like a good thing) an option to produce some kind of DVD/Blu-Ray/whatever backup from time to time wouldn't be bad My first thought was that this kind of incremental backup was what tar was created for - create a tar file once each month, add incrementally to it. rsync results to remote box. But others probably have better suggestions.

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  • Cannot get list of elements using Linq to XML

    - by Blackator
    Sample XML: <CONFIGURATION> <Files> <File>D:\Test\TestFolder\TestFolder1\TestFile.txt</File> <File>D:\Test\TestFolder\TestFolder1\TestFile01.txt</File> <File>D:\Test\TestFolder\TestFolder1\TestFile02.txt</File> <File>D:\Test\TestFolder\TestFolder1\TestFile03.txt</File> <File>D:\Test\TestFolder\TestFolder1\TestFile04.txt</File> </Files> <SizeMB>3</SizeMB> <BackupLocation>D:\Log backups\File backups</BackupLocation> </CONFIGURATION> I've been doing some tutorials but I am unable to get all the list of file inside the files element. It only shows the first element and doesn't display the rest. This is my code: var fileFolders = from file in XDocument.Load(@"D:\Hello\backupconfig1.xml").Descendants("Files") select new { File = file.Element("File").Value }; foreach (var fileFolder in fileFolders) { Console.WriteLine("File = " + fileFolder.File); } How do I display all the File in the Files element, the SizeMB and BackupLocation? Thanks

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  • SQL Server &ndash; Undelete a Table and Restore a Single Table from Backup

    - by Mladen Prajdic
    This post is part of the monthly community event called T-SQL Tuesday started by Adam Machanic (blog|twitter) and hosted by someone else each month. This month the host is Sankar Reddy (blog|twitter) and the topic is Misconceptions in SQL Server. You can follow posts for this theme on Twitter by looking at #TSQL2sDay hashtag. Let me start by saying: This code is a crazy hack that is to never be used unless you really, really have to. Really! And I don’t think there’s a time when you would really have to use it for real. Because it’s a hack there are number of things that can go wrong so play with it knowing that. I’ve managed to totally corrupt one database. :) Oh… and for those saying: yeah yeah.. you have a single table in a file group and you’re restoring that, I say “nay nay” to you. As we all know SQL Server can’t do single table restores from backup. This is kind of a obvious thing due to different relational integrity (RI) concerns. Since we have to maintain that we have to restore all tables represented in a RI graph. For this exercise i say BAH! to those concerns. Note that this method “works” only for simple tables that don’t have LOB and off rows data. The code can be expanded to include those but I’ve tried to leave things “simple”. Note that for this to work our table needs to be relatively static data-wise. This doesn’t work for OLTP table. Products are a perfect example of static data. They don’t change much between backups, pretty much everything depends on them and their table is one of those tables that are relatively easy to accidentally delete everything from. This only works if the database is in Full or Bulk-Logged recovery mode for tables where the contents have been deleted or truncated but NOT when a table was dropped. Everything we’ll talk about has to be done before the data pages are reused for other purposes. After deletion or truncation the pages are marked as reusable so you have to act fast. The best thing probably is to put the database into single user mode ASAP while you’re performing this procedure and return it to multi user after you’re done. How do we do it? We will be using an undocumented but known DBCC commands: DBCC PAGE, an undocumented function sys.fn_dblog and a little known DATABASE RESTORE PAGE option. All tests will be on a copy of Production.Product table in AdventureWorks database called Production.Product1 because the original table has FK constraints that prevent us from truncating it for testing. -- create a duplicate table. This doesn't preserve indexes!SELECT *INTO AdventureWorks.Production.Product1FROM AdventureWorks.Production.Product   After we run this code take a full back to perform further testing.   First let’s see what the difference between DELETE and TRUNCATE is when it comes to logging. With DELETE every row deletion is logged in the transaction log. With TRUNCATE only whole data page deallocations are logged in the transaction log. Getting deleted data pages is simple. All we have to look for is row delete entry in the sys.fn_dblog output. But getting data pages that were truncated from the transaction log presents a bit of an interesting problem. I will not go into depths of IAM(Index Allocation Map) and PFS (Page Free Space) pages but suffice to say that every IAM page has intervals that tell us which data pages are allocated for a table and which aren’t. If we deep dive into the sys.fn_dblog output we can see that once you truncate a table all the pages in all the intervals are deallocated and this is shown in the PFS page transaction log entry as deallocation of pages. For every 8 pages in the same extent there is one PFS page row in the transaction log. This row holds information about all 8 pages in CSV format which means we can get to this data with some parsing. A great help for parsing this stuff is Peter Debetta’s handy function dbo.HexStrToVarBin that converts hexadecimal string into a varbinary value that can be easily converted to integer tus giving us a readable page number. The shortened (columns removed) sys.fn_dblog output for a PFS page with CSV data for 1 extent (8 data pages) looks like this: -- [Page ID] is displayed in hex format. -- To convert it to readable int we'll use dbo.HexStrToVarBin function found at -- http://sqlblog.com/blogs/peter_debetta/archive/2007/03/09/t-sql-convert-hex-string-to-varbinary.aspx -- This function must be installed in the master databaseSELECT Context, AllocUnitName, [Page ID], DescriptionFROM sys.fn_dblog(NULL, NULL)WHERE [Current LSN] = '00000031:00000a46:007d' The pages at the end marked with 0x00—> are pages that are allocated in the extent but are not part of a table. We can inspect the raw content of each data page with a DBCC PAGE command: -- we need this trace flag to redirect output to the query window.DBCC TRACEON (3604); -- WITH TABLERESULTS gives us data in table format instead of message format-- we use format option 3 because it's the easiest to read and manipulate further onDBCC PAGE (AdventureWorks, 1, 613, 3) WITH TABLERESULTS   Since the DBACC PAGE output can be quite extensive I won’t put it here. You can see an example of it in the link at the beginning of this section. Getting deleted data back When we run a delete statement every row to be deleted is marked as a ghost record. A background process periodically cleans up those rows. A huge misconception is that the data is actually removed. It’s not. Only the pointers to the rows are removed while the data itself is still on the data page. We just can’t access it with normal means. To get those pointers back we need to restore every deleted page using the RESTORE PAGE option mentioned above. This restore must be done from a full backup, followed by any differential and log backups that you may have. This is necessary to bring the pages up to the same point in time as the rest of the data.  However the restore doesn’t magically connect the restored page back to the original table. It simply replaces the current page with the one from the backup. After the restore we use the DBCC PAGE to read data directly from all data pages and insert that data into a temporary table. To finish the RESTORE PAGE  procedure we finally have to take a tail log backup (simple backup of the transaction log) and restore it back. We can now insert data from the temporary table to our original table by hand. Getting truncated data back When we run a truncate the truncated data pages aren’t touched at all. Even the pointers to rows stay unchanged. Because of this getting data back from truncated table is simple. we just have to find out which pages belonged to our table and use DBCC PAGE to read data off of them. No restore is necessary. Turns out that the problems we had with finding the data pages is alleviated by not having to do a RESTORE PAGE procedure. Stop stalling… show me The Code! This is the code for getting back deleted and truncated data back. It’s commented in all the right places so don’t be afraid to take a closer look. Make sure you have a full backup before trying this out. Also I suggest that the last step of backing and restoring the tail log is performed by hand. USE masterGOIF OBJECT_ID('dbo.HexStrToVarBin') IS NULL RAISERROR ('No dbo.HexStrToVarBin installed. Go to http://sqlblog.com/blogs/peter_debetta/archive/2007/03/09/t-sql-convert-hex-string-to-varbinary.aspx and install it in master database' , 18, 1) SET NOCOUNT ONBEGIN TRY DECLARE @dbName VARCHAR(1000), @schemaName VARCHAR(1000), @tableName VARCHAR(1000), @fullBackupName VARCHAR(1000), @undeletedTableName VARCHAR(1000), @sql VARCHAR(MAX), @tableWasTruncated bit; /* THE FIRST LINE ARE OUR INPUT PARAMETERS In this case we're trying to recover Production.Product1 table in AdventureWorks database. My full backup of AdventureWorks database is at e:\AW.bak */ SELECT @dbName = 'AdventureWorks', @schemaName = 'Production', @tableName = 'Product1', @fullBackupName = 'e:\AW.bak', @undeletedTableName = '##' + @tableName + '_Undeleted', @tableWasTruncated = 0, -- copy the structure from original table to a temp table that we'll fill with restored data @sql = 'IF OBJECT_ID(''tempdb..' + @undeletedTableName + ''') IS NOT NULL DROP TABLE ' + @undeletedTableName + ' SELECT *' + ' INTO ' + @undeletedTableName + ' FROM [' + @dbName + '].[' + @schemaName + '].[' + @tableName + ']' + ' WHERE 1 = 0' EXEC (@sql) IF OBJECT_ID('tempdb..#PagesToRestore') IS NOT NULL DROP TABLE #PagesToRestore /* FIND DATA PAGES WE NEED TO RESTORE*/ CREATE TABLE #PagesToRestore ([ID] INT IDENTITY(1,1), [FileID] INT, [PageID] INT, [SQLtoExec] VARCHAR(1000)) -- DBCC PACE statement to run later RAISERROR ('Looking for deleted pages...', 10, 1) -- use T-LOG direct read to get deleted data pages INSERT INTO #PagesToRestore([FileID], [PageID], [SQLtoExec]) EXEC('USE [' + @dbName + '];SELECT FileID, PageID, ''DBCC TRACEON (3604); DBCC PAGE ([' + @dbName + '], '' + FileID + '', '' + PageID + '', 3) WITH TABLERESULTS'' as SQLToExecFROM (SELECT DISTINCT LEFT([Page ID], 4) AS FileID, CONVERT(VARCHAR(100), ' + 'CONVERT(INT, master.dbo.HexStrToVarBin(SUBSTRING([Page ID], 6, 20)))) AS PageIDFROM sys.fn_dblog(NULL, NULL)WHERE AllocUnitName LIKE ''%' + @schemaName + '.' + @tableName + '%'' ' + 'AND Context IN (''LCX_MARK_AS_GHOST'', ''LCX_HEAP'') AND Operation in (''LOP_DELETE_ROWS''))t');SELECT *FROM #PagesToRestore -- if upper EXEC returns 0 rows it means the table was truncated so find truncated pages IF (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM #PagesToRestore) = 0 BEGIN RAISERROR ('No deleted pages found. Looking for truncated pages...', 10, 1) -- use T-LOG read to get truncated data pages INSERT INTO #PagesToRestore([FileID], [PageID], [SQLtoExec]) -- dark magic happens here -- because truncation simply deallocates pages we have to find out which pages were deallocated. -- we can find this out by looking at the PFS page row's Description column. -- for every deallocated extent the Description has a CSV of 8 pages in that extent. -- then it's just a matter of parsing it. -- we also remove the pages in the extent that weren't allocated to the table itself -- marked with '0x00-->00' EXEC ('USE [' + @dbName + '];DECLARE @truncatedPages TABLE(DeallocatedPages VARCHAR(8000), IsMultipleDeallocs BIT);INSERT INTO @truncatedPagesSELECT REPLACE(REPLACE(Description, ''Deallocated '', ''Y''), ''0x00-->00 '', ''N'') + '';'' AS DeallocatedPages, CHARINDEX('';'', Description) AS IsMultipleDeallocsFROM (SELECT DISTINCT LEFT([Page ID], 4) AS FileID, CONVERT(VARCHAR(100), CONVERT(INT, master.dbo.HexStrToVarBin(SUBSTRING([Page ID], 6, 20)))) AS PageID, DescriptionFROM sys.fn_dblog(NULL, NULL)WHERE Context IN (''LCX_PFS'') AND Description LIKE ''Deallocated%'' AND AllocUnitName LIKE ''%' + @schemaName + '.' + @tableName + '%'') t;SELECT FileID, PageID , ''DBCC TRACEON (3604); DBCC PAGE ([' + @dbName + '], '' + FileID + '', '' + PageID + '', 3) WITH TABLERESULTS'' as SQLToExecFROM (SELECT LEFT(PageAndFile, 1) as WasPageAllocatedToTable , SUBSTRING(PageAndFile, 2, CHARINDEX('':'', PageAndFile) - 2 ) as FileID , CONVERT(VARCHAR(100), CONVERT(INT, master.dbo.HexStrToVarBin(SUBSTRING(PageAndFile, CHARINDEX('':'', PageAndFile) + 1, LEN(PageAndFile))))) as PageIDFROM ( SELECT SUBSTRING(DeallocatedPages, delimPosStart, delimPosEnd - delimPosStart) as PageAndFile, IsMultipleDeallocs FROM ( SELECT *, CHARINDEX('';'', DeallocatedPages)*(N-1) + 1 AS delimPosStart, CHARINDEX('';'', DeallocatedPages)*N AS delimPosEnd FROM @truncatedPages t1 CROSS APPLY (SELECT TOP (case when t1.IsMultipleDeallocs = 1 then 8 else 1 end) ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY number) as N FROM master..spt_values) t2 )t)t)tWHERE WasPageAllocatedToTable = ''Y''') SELECT @tableWasTruncated = 1 END DECLARE @lastID INT, @pagesCount INT SELECT @lastID = 1, @pagesCount = COUNT(*) FROM #PagesToRestore SELECT @sql = 'Number of pages to restore: ' + CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), @pagesCount) IF @pagesCount = 0 RAISERROR ('No data pages to restore.', 18, 1) ELSE RAISERROR (@sql, 10, 1) -- If the table was truncated we'll read the data directly from data pages without restoring from backup IF @tableWasTruncated = 0 BEGIN -- RESTORE DATA PAGES FROM FULL BACKUP IN BATCHES OF 200 WHILE @lastID <= @pagesCount BEGIN -- create CSV string of pages to restore SELECT @sql = STUFF((SELECT ',' + CONVERT(VARCHAR(100), FileID) + ':' + CONVERT(VARCHAR(100), PageID) FROM #PagesToRestore WHERE ID BETWEEN @lastID AND @lastID + 200 ORDER BY ID FOR XML PATH('')), 1, 1, '') SELECT @sql = 'RESTORE DATABASE [' + @dbName + '] PAGE = ''' + @sql + ''' FROM DISK = ''' + @fullBackupName + '''' RAISERROR ('Starting RESTORE command:' , 10, 1) WITH NOWAIT; RAISERROR (@sql , 10, 1) WITH NOWAIT; EXEC(@sql); RAISERROR ('Restore DONE' , 10, 1) WITH NOWAIT; SELECT @lastID = @lastID + 200 END /* If you have any differential or transaction log backups you should restore them here to bring the previously restored data pages up to date */ END DECLARE @dbccSinglePage TABLE ( [ParentObject] NVARCHAR(500), [Object] NVARCHAR(500), [Field] NVARCHAR(500), [VALUE] NVARCHAR(MAX) ) DECLARE @cols NVARCHAR(MAX), @paramDefinition NVARCHAR(500), @SQLtoExec VARCHAR(1000), @FileID VARCHAR(100), @PageID VARCHAR(100), @i INT = 1 -- Get deleted table columns from information_schema view -- Need sp_executeSQL because database name can't be passed in as variable SELECT @cols = 'select @cols = STUFF((SELECT '', ['' + COLUMN_NAME + '']''FROM ' + @dbName + '.INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNSWHERE TABLE_NAME = ''' + @tableName + ''' AND TABLE_SCHEMA = ''' + @schemaName + '''ORDER BY ORDINAL_POSITIONFOR XML PATH('''')), 1, 2, '''')', @paramDefinition = N'@cols nvarchar(max) OUTPUT' EXECUTE sp_executesql @cols, @paramDefinition, @cols = @cols OUTPUT -- Loop through all the restored data pages, -- read data from them and insert them into temp table -- which you can then insert into the orignial deleted table DECLARE dbccPageCursor CURSOR GLOBAL FORWARD_ONLY FOR SELECT [FileID], [PageID], [SQLtoExec] FROM #PagesToRestore ORDER BY [FileID], [PageID] OPEN dbccPageCursor; FETCH NEXT FROM dbccPageCursor INTO @FileID, @PageID, @SQLtoExec; WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0 BEGIN RAISERROR ('---------------------------------------------', 10, 1) WITH NOWAIT; SELECT @sql = 'Loop iteration: ' + CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), @i); RAISERROR (@sql, 10, 1) WITH NOWAIT; SELECT @sql = 'Running: ' + @SQLtoExec RAISERROR (@sql, 10, 1) WITH NOWAIT; -- if something goes wrong with DBCC execution or data gathering, skip it but print error BEGIN TRY INSERT INTO @dbccSinglePage EXEC (@SQLtoExec) -- make the data insert magic happen here IF (SELECT CONVERT(BIGINT, [VALUE]) FROM @dbccSinglePage WHERE [Field] LIKE '%Metadata: ObjectId%') = OBJECT_ID('['+@dbName+'].['+@schemaName +'].['+@tableName+']') BEGIN DELETE @dbccSinglePage WHERE NOT ([ParentObject] LIKE 'Slot % Offset %' AND [Object] LIKE 'Slot % Column %') SELECT @sql = 'USE tempdb; ' + 'IF (OBJECTPROPERTY(object_id(''' + @undeletedTableName + '''), ''TableHasIdentity'') = 1) ' + 'SET IDENTITY_INSERT ' + @undeletedTableName + ' ON; ' + 'INSERT INTO ' + @undeletedTableName + '(' + @cols + ') ' + STUFF((SELECT ' UNION ALL SELECT ' + STUFF((SELECT ', ' + CASE WHEN VALUE = '[NULL]' THEN 'NULL' ELSE '''' + [VALUE] + '''' END FROM ( -- the unicorn help here to correctly set ordinal numbers of columns in a data page -- it's turning STRING order into INT order (1,10,11,2,21 into 1,2,..10,11...21) SELECT [ParentObject], [Object], Field, VALUE, RIGHT('00000' + O1, 6) AS ParentObjectOrder, RIGHT('00000' + REVERSE(LEFT(O2, CHARINDEX(' ', O2)-1)), 6) AS ObjectOrder FROM ( SELECT [ParentObject], [Object], Field, VALUE, REPLACE(LEFT([ParentObject], CHARINDEX('Offset', [ParentObject])-1), 'Slot ', '') AS O1, REVERSE(LEFT([Object], CHARINDEX('Offset ', [Object])-2)) AS O2 FROM @dbccSinglePage WHERE t.ParentObject = ParentObject )t)t ORDER BY ParentObjectOrder, ObjectOrder FOR XML PATH('')), 1, 2, '') FROM @dbccSinglePage t GROUP BY ParentObject FOR XML PATH('') ), 1, 11, '') + ';' RAISERROR (@sql, 10, 1) WITH NOWAIT; EXEC (@sql) END END TRY BEGIN CATCH SELECT @sql = 'ERROR!!!' + CHAR(10) + CHAR(13) + 'ErrorNumber: ' + ERROR_NUMBER() + '; ErrorMessage' + ERROR_MESSAGE() + CHAR(10) + CHAR(13) + 'FileID: ' + @FileID + '; PageID: ' + @PageID RAISERROR (@sql, 10, 1) WITH NOWAIT; END CATCH DELETE @dbccSinglePage SELECT @sql = 'Pages left to process: ' + CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), @pagesCount - @i) + CHAR(10) + CHAR(13) + CHAR(10) + CHAR(13) + CHAR(10) + CHAR(13), @i = @i+1 RAISERROR (@sql, 10, 1) WITH NOWAIT; FETCH NEXT FROM dbccPageCursor INTO @FileID, @PageID, @SQLtoExec; END CLOSE dbccPageCursor; DEALLOCATE dbccPageCursor; EXEC ('SELECT ''' + @undeletedTableName + ''' as TableName; SELECT * FROM ' + @undeletedTableName)END TRYBEGIN CATCH SELECT ERROR_NUMBER() AS ErrorNumber, ERROR_MESSAGE() AS ErrorMessage IF CURSOR_STATUS ('global', 'dbccPageCursor') >= 0 BEGIN CLOSE dbccPageCursor; DEALLOCATE dbccPageCursor; ENDEND CATCH-- if the table was deleted we need to finish the restore page sequenceIF @tableWasTruncated = 0BEGIN -- take a log tail backup and then restore it to complete page restore process DECLARE @currentDate VARCHAR(30) SELECT @currentDate = CONVERT(VARCHAR(30), GETDATE(), 112) RAISERROR ('Starting Log Tail backup to c:\Temp ...', 10, 1) WITH NOWAIT; PRINT ('BACKUP LOG [' + @dbName + '] TO DISK = ''c:\Temp\' + @dbName + '_TailLogBackup_' + @currentDate + '.trn''') EXEC ('BACKUP LOG [' + @dbName + '] TO DISK = ''c:\Temp\' + @dbName + '_TailLogBackup_' + @currentDate + '.trn''') RAISERROR ('Log Tail backup done.', 10, 1) WITH NOWAIT; RAISERROR ('Starting Log Tail restore from c:\Temp ...', 10, 1) WITH NOWAIT; PRINT ('RESTORE LOG [' + @dbName + '] FROM DISK = ''c:\Temp\' + @dbName + '_TailLogBackup_' + @currentDate + '.trn''') EXEC ('RESTORE LOG [' + @dbName + '] FROM DISK = ''c:\Temp\' + @dbName + '_TailLogBackup_' + @currentDate + '.trn''') RAISERROR ('Log Tail restore done.', 10, 1) WITH NOWAIT;END-- The last step is manual. Insert data from our temporary table to the original deleted table The misconception here is that you can do a single table restore properly in SQL Server. You can't. But with little experimentation you can get pretty close to it. One way to possible remove a dependency on a backup to retrieve deleted pages is to quickly run a similar script to the upper one that gets data directly from data pages while the rows are still marked as ghost records. It could be done if we could beat the ghost record cleanup task.

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  • SBS 2008 Backup Drive Full - Error Code '2147942512'

    - by HK1
    We are using Windows Backup on SBS 2008 SP2 and backing up to 1TB external hard drives. Recently after switching drives our backup started failing because the backup drive is full and auto-delete isn't automatically deleting older backups/show copies. I'm trying to get more information to help me effectively prevent this problem from reoccurring in the future. How I can tell that the drive is getting full: In the event viewer under Windows Logs Application, I'm seeing Event ID 517 but it fails to show an intelligible description. However, under Applications and Services Logs Microsoft Windows Backup Operational, I'm seeing an event with the ID of 5 and a description like this: Backup started at '10/4/2011 12:30:12 PM' failed with following error code '2147942512'. One of the most informative posts I've found on this error is located on Microsoft's Technet Forums here. In that post, a Microsoft representative gives this hazy explanation: auto-delete feature to ensure that at least some old backup copies are maintained on the disk -- does not automatically delete backups if space utilization by older copies is less than 1/8 of the disk size or in other words, 13% of the disk size. that means if the one full backup copy does not fit in the 7/8 of the disk size, backup may fail with disk full error. auto-delete will not automatically delete older versions to reclaim more older versions of backup. In the above explanation, I do not understand what is meant by "older copies" except that it appears that anything older than the very last shadow copy would be considered "older copies". I'm going to make the assumption that this problem where auto-delete will not work will affect any hard drive that is large enough to make an effective backup drive, or in other words, any hard drive that is large enough to hold more than one backup/shadow copy at once. The same MS representative proposes the solution of using a larger backup drive. I can't understand how this will help. It appears to me it will simply delay the problem until a later date. In order to resolve this problem for now, I did the following: Assign the backup drive a disk letter under disk management. Run the command line with Administrative rights. diskshadow.exe [enter] delete shadows oldest x: [enter] (where X: is the letter you assigned your backup drive) I manually ran the above command some 60 or 80 times to free up about 200 GB of space on my 1 Terrabyte External Hard drive. However, I do not feel this is a satisfactory solution to prevent the problem from happening again in the future. Does anyone have a solution to prevent your Windows Server backup drive from getting full?

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  • Mounting a share with spaces in FreeBSD fstab

    - by Blake
    I'm trying to mount a smb network share in fstab on FreeBSD, which works fine for a share without spaces, but fails if a space is in the name. I have replaced the space with \040 which is what everything on google has said, but that didn't help. Share name I'm trying to mount is "Data Backups". Share name as written in fstab that doesn't work: //USERNAME@COMPUTER/Data\040Backups Any suggestions?

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