TechNet Magazine: August 2009 SQL Q&A column

The August edition of TechNet Magazine is available on the web now and has the latest installment of my regular SQL Q&A column.

This month's topics are:

  • Proactive page checksum failure detection
  • Why GUIDs make for bad clustered index keys 
  • Possible problems using a log shipping secondary for reporting 
  • Recovery model choice for log size management

Check it out at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/dd776512.aspx.

3 thoughts on “TechNet Magazine: August 2009 SQL Q&A column

  1. Paul,

    If you use Bulk Logged in a Log Shipping scenario as opposed to Full recovery will everything be applied to the standby server or are there certain actions that will not be shipped? In other words, when we have to bring the standby server online will it be identical to the source or will some data/indexes/etc be missing as a result of running under Bulk Logged?

    Regards;
    Greg

  2. Paul,

    I discovered that with Veritas Backup Exec backup software, performing a full backup (as described by the software) does not backup the log file too. Just the database — even if your database is set to Full recovery model. Therefore, the log file continues to grow.

    In order to manage your log file with Backup Exec, you actually have to schedule another job to perform a backup of the log file. Then your log gets truncated correctly.

    For anyone that uses Backup Exec, or any backup software, review your settings and make sure the log file is included in a "full" backup.

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