Database Backup and Recovery Strategy

A database can become unusable because of hardware or software failure, or both. You may, at one time or another, encounter storage problems, power interruptions, and application failures, and different failure scenarios require different recovery actions. Protect your data against the possibility of loss by having a well rehearsed recovery strategy in place. Some of the questions that you should answer when developing your recovery strategy are: Will the database be recoverable? How much time can be spent recovering the database? How much time will pass between backup operations? How much storage space can be allocated for backup copies and archived logs? Will table space level backups be sufficient, or will full database backups be necessary?

A database recovery strategy should ensure that all information is available when it is required for database recovery. It should include a regular schedule for taking database backups and, in the case of partitioned database systems, include backups when the system is scaled (when database partition servers or nodes are added or dropped). Your overall strategy should also include procedures for recovering command scripts, applications, user-defined functions (UDFs), stored procedure code in operating system libraries, and load copies.