SYS-CON Events announced today that Wowrack will exhibit at SYS-CON's 12th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 10–13, 2013, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York.
Wowrack’s core expertise lies in high-availability Private and Public Cloud IaaS Hosting Solutions. Wowrack provides a true Hybrid service – where business release all IT management and hardware provisioning – taking the data center and server system administrative headaches off our customer’s shoulders. ...| By Keith Mayer | Article Rating: |
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| March 18, 2013 10:00 AM EDT | Reads: |
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I think every IT Pro I’ve ever met hates tape backups … but having an offsite component in your backup strategy is absolutely necessary for effective disaster recovery. One of the new features provided in SQL Server 2012 Service Pack 1 Cumulative Update 2 is the ability to now backup SQL databases and logs to Windows Azure cloud storage using native SQL Server Backup via both Transact-SQL (T-SQL) and SQL Server Management Objects (SMO).
Backup to cloud storage is a natural fit for disaster recovery, as our backups are instantly located offsite when completed. And, the pay-as-you-go model of cloud storage economics makes it really cost effective – Windows Azure storage costs are less than $100/TB per month for geo-redundant storage based on current published costs as of this article’s date. That’s less than the cost of a couple SDLT tapes! You can check out our current pricing model for Windows Azure Storage on our Price Calculator page.
In this article, I’ll step through the process of using SQL Server 2012 SP1 CU2 native backup capabilities to create database backups on Windows Azure cloud storage.
How do I get started?
To get started, you’ll need a Windows Azure subscription. Good news! You can get a FREE 90-Day Windows Azure subscription to follow along with this article, evaluate and test … this subscription is 100% free for 90-days and there’s absolutely no obligation to convert to a paid subscription.
- DO IT: Sign-up for a Free 90-Day Windows Azure Subscription
NOTE: When activating your FREE 90-Day Subscription for Windows Azure, you will be prompted for credit card information. This information is used only to validate your identity and your credit card will not be charged, unless you explicitly convert your FREE Trial account to a paid subscription at a later point in time.
You’ll also need to download Cumulative Update 2 for SQL Server 2012 Service Pack 1 and apply that to the SQL Server instance with which you’ll be testing.
Don’t have a SQL Server 2012 instance in your data center that you can test with? No problem! You can spin up a SQL Server 2012 VM in the Windows Azure Cloud using your Free 90-Day subscription.
Let’s grab some cloud storage
Once you’ve got your Windows Azure subscription activated and your SQL Server 2012 lab environment patched with SP1 CU2, you’re ready to provision some cloud storage that can be used as a backup location for SQL databases …
- Launch the Windows Azure Management Portal and login with the credentials used when activating your FREE 90-Day Subscription above.
- Click Storage in the left navigation pane of the Windows Azure Management Portal.
Windows Azure Management Portal – Storage Accounts
- On the Storage page of the Windows Azure Management Portal, click +NEW on the bottom toolbar to create a new storage account location.
Creating a new Windows Azure Storage Account location
- Click Quick Create on the New > Storage popup menu and complete the fields as listed below:
- URL: XXXbackup01 ( where XXX represents your initials in lowercase )
- Region / Affinity Group: Select an available Windows Azure datacenter region for your new Storage Account.
NOTE: Because you will be using this Storage Account location for backup / disaster recovery scenarios, be sure to select a Datacenter Region that is not near to you for additional protection against disasters that may affect your entire local area.
Click the Create Storage Account button to create your new Storage Account location.
- Wait for your new Storage Account to be provisioned.
Provisioning new Windows Azure Storage Account
Once the status of your new Storage Account shows as Online, you may continue with the next step.
- Select your newly created Storage Account and click the Manage Keys button on the bottom toolbar to display the Manage Access Keys dialog box.
Manage Access Keys dialog box
Click the
button located next to the Secondary Access Key field to copy this access key to your clipboard for later use.
- Create a container within your Windows Azure Storage Account to store backups. Click on the name of your Storage Account on the Storage page in the Windows Azure Management Portal to drill into the details of this account, then select the Containers tab located at the top of the page.
Containers tab within a Windows Azure Storage Account
On the bottom toolbar, click the Add Container button to create a new container named “backups”.
You’ve now completed the provisioning of your new Windows Azure storage account location.
We’re ready to backup to the cloud
When you’re ready to test a SQL database backup to the cloud, launch SQL Server Management Studio and connect to your SQL Server 2012 SP1 CU2 database engine instance. After you’ve done this, proceed with the following steps to complete a backup …
- In SQL Server Management Studio, right-click on the database you wish to backup in the Object Explorer list pane and select New Query.
SQL Server Management Studio
- In the new SQL Query Window, execute the following Transact-SQL code to create a credential that can be used to authenticate to your Windows Azure Storage Account with secure read/write access:
CREATE CREDENTIAL myAzureCredential
WITH IDENTITY='XXXbackup01',
SECRET=’PASTE IN YOUR COPIED ACCESS KEY HERE';Prior to running this code, be sure to replace XXXbackup01 with the name of your Windows Azure Storage Account created above and paste in the Access Key you previously copied to your clipboard.
-
In the SQL Query Window, execute the following Transact-SQL code to perform the database backup to your Windows Azure Storage Account:
BACKUP DATABASE database_name TO
URL='https://XXXbackup01.blob.core.windows.net/backups/database_name.bak'
WITH CREDENTIAL='myAzureCredential' , STATS = 5;
Prior to running this code, be sure to replace XXXbackup01 with the name of your Windows Azure Storage Account and replace database_name with the name of your database.
Upon successful execution of the backup, you should see SQL Query result messages similar to the following:
Successful Backup Results
What about restoring?
Restoring from the cloud is just as easy as backing up … to restore we can use the following Transact-SQL syntax:
RESTORE DATABASE database_name FROM
URL='https://XXXbackup01.blob.core.windows.net/backups/database_name.bak'
WITH CREDENTIAL=’myAzureCredential’, STATS = 5, REPLACE
Thoughts? Comments? Feedback?
What are your thoughts around leveraging the cloud for backup storage? Feel free to post your comments, questions and feedback below.
-Keith
Published March 18, 2013 Reads 3,045
Copyright © 2013 SYS-CON Media, Inc. — All Rights Reserved.
Syndicated stories and blog feeds, all rights reserved by the author.
More Stories By Keith Mayer
Keith Mayer is a Technical Evangelist at Microsoft focused on Windows Infrastructure, Data Center Virtualization, Systems Management and Private Cloud. Keith has over 17 years of experience as a technical leader of complex IT projects, in diverse roles, such as Network Engineer, IT Manager, Technical Instructor and Consultant. He has consulted and trained thousands of IT professionals worldwide on the design and implementation of enterprise technology solutions.
Keith is currently certified on several Microsoft technologies, including System Center, Hyper-V, Windows, Windows Server, SharePoint and Exchange. He also holds other industry certifications from IBM, Cisco, Citrix, HP, CheckPoint, CompTIA and Interwoven.
Keith is the author of the IT Pros ROCK! Blog on Microsoft TechNet, voted as one of the Top 50 "Must Read" IT Blogs.
Keith also manages the Windows Server 2012 "Early Experts" Challenge - a FREE online study group for IT Pros interested in studying and preparing for certification on Windows Server 2012. Join us and become the next "Early Expert"!
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As enterprises deploy private IaaS clouds into production they are reevaluating their future application delivery models. SUSE and WSO2 believe that private PaaS will leverage the automation and scalability of Private IaaS solutions, such as OpenStack-based SUSE Cloud, to deliver the secure, standardized development environments that will make migrating to an agile, serviceoriented delivery model possible.
In their session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Chris Haddad, VP of Technology Ev...
“Open source has always provided a number of benefits, including easing adoption costs, propagating a better understanding of the technology, and allowing for faster evolution and commercialization of products and services based on it,” noted Terry Woloszyn, Founder & CEO, Leeward Security Ltd., in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “This is clearly evident with the OpenStack and CloudStack,” Woloszyn continued, “and others that have been quickly commercialized as...
Organizations across the world are increasingly starting to see the benefits of moving more and more services to the cloud. The focus on the cost-saving potential of cloud is rapidly shifting to completely transforming the business with cloud. As organizations are investing enormous sums on technology they are starting to realize that in order to maximize the return on investment and accelerate the business transformation process the first area of focus should be people. By ensuring the organiza...
In his session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Dave Eichorn, Global Data Center Practice Head at Zensar, will share a case study describing how a utility services company handled the migration of its Microsoft platform to the cloud. Challenged with the time-consuming task of opening operations out of temporary offices, this company struggled with the need to simultaneously access data that was accumulated from a vast amount of data-intensive jobs. Zensar migrated the company’s application ...
You're getting pitched every day from your legacy enterprise software and hardware vendors about "cloud." They're doing an amazing job of convincing your CIO and CTO about what cloud is and how you should use it. The reality is they're defending their shrinking market share and keeping you on the legacy treadmill for as long as they can by selling you solutions that aren't "cloud."
In her session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Niki Acosta, Cloud Evangelista for Rackspace, will talk thro...
SYS-CON Events announced today that OpenStack will exhibit at SYS-CON's 12th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 10–13, 2013, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York. OpenStack software controls large pools of compute, storage, and networking resources throughout a datacenter, all managed by a dashboard that gives administrators control while empowering their users to provision resources through a web interface.
OpenStack powers some of the most widely-used SaaS app...
Many have heard of OAuth but are unsure of how it might apply to their business.
In his session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Alistair Farquharson, CTO of SOA Software, will describe how OAuth can be used to facilitate certain business models and simplify the sharing of private data.
Alistair Farquharson is a visionary industry veteran focused on using disruptive technologies to drive business growth and improve efficiency and agility within organizations. As the CTO of SOA Software A...
SYS-CON Events announced today that nfina Technologies, a provider of highly reliable cloud server products, will exhibit at SYS-CON's 12th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 10–13, 2013, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York.
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