T-SQL Tuesday 152 – Save your colleagues from a database restore nightmare

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For this months T-SQL Tuesday contribution I want to share how you can save your colleagues from a database restore nightmare by testing your backups.

It has been two years and two months since the last time I pointed out that you must test your backups in a post. So, thought that it was about time that I mentioned it again.

Deborah Melkin hosts this months T-SQL Tuesday. Deborah invites us to have a bit of a rant about something.

You can read the original invitation to decide for yourself. By clicking on this link for the T-SQL Tuesday 152 invitation or on the image below.

Save your colleagues from a database restore nightmare

It has been approximately one year and ten months since I briefly mentioned this in my previous T-SQL post about database analogies. Now I am giving the topic center stage in this one to make sure the message gets across.

In reality, not being able to restore a database can damage your company’s reputation and you can end up losing colleagues for various reasons. For example, if they ask for restores to be tested and it never happens.

To save your colleagues from a database restore nightmare you must test restoring your database backups at some level. Otherwise, it can lead to serious issues.

Trust me, I know from experience. Earlier in my career I spent at least twenty-seven hours getting a database back up and running thanks to a comedy of errors relating to a corrupted database.

Here are three things I discovered in that twenty-seven hour period:

• If another team is responsible for backups make sure you check the frequency of your database backups yourself if you are responsible for databases.
• Backup logs can lie.
• You must test restoring your database backups at some level.

In reality, this applies to a lot of other database applications and services as well. However, this is a T-SQL Tuesday post. So, I want to make it clear that this applies to SQL Server databases.

Final words

I hope reading about how you can save your colleagues from a database restore nightmare has encouraged some of you to test your backups at some level. Because it is not a nice situation to be in.

Of course, if you have any comments or queries about this post feel free to reach out to me.