What is the best RDBMS backup frequency to ensure data recovery?

There are numerous possibilities interms of Data recovery, Especially in Oracle, With the method of Image copy you can even recover an massive 100 TB database in just few minutes, Given the fact that you need to have a 100 TB storage to save these images. From an Organization perspective, Backups are meant to be "Just in case" and no company should go to state where it needs to take something from the backup. Tools such as Oracle RMAN provides wider are of recovery / restore / cloning / migration & even various aspects of managing the data. It depends on various factor like size / criticality / RPO etc.

There are lots of parameters to define the backup strategies like: - size of data - frequency of change - how critical is the data

1. Regular backups: It is generally recommended to perform regular backups of the RDBMS to minimize the risk of data loss. 2. Transaction log backups: In addition to regular backups, consider implementing transaction log backups. 3. Recovery Point Objective (RPO): Determine the acceptable level of data loss for your organization. 4. Recovery Time Objective (RTO): Consider the time it takes to restore the database from a backup. 5. Testing and validation: Regularly test and validate your backup and recovery processes to ensure they are functioning correctly.

Backup is the salvation of any environment! No matter the size of your business, no matter what type of business you have, without a database backup, you are in serious danger! Nobody is free of making mistakes: updating tables, dropping data, without considering the cyberattacks! Backup is the most important thing in a DBA career! Be a master in it!

Database backups are like insurance for your digital data. They create an extra copy of all your school records, game scores, and more, stored safely away in a backup server, or even on your local machine. This "super copy" saves you if the original gets deleted, hacked, or just breaks.

In SQL Server, recovery is the process of restoring a database to a consistent state after a failure or data loss. It involves using previously created backups and transaction logs to bring the database back online and ensure data integrity. There are 3 types of recovery models in SQL Server - * Simple - We can take full and differential backup of databases in Simple recovery mode. Transaction log backups are not possible. Hence point in time recovery is not possible. * Full - Full, differential along with Tlog backups are possible. Point in time recovery is possible. * Bulk-Logged - Full, differential along with Tlog backups are possible. Point in time recovery is possible.

"A recovery is the process of restoring your data from a backup to your RDBMS." - nonsense, there is also crash recovery, which is not related to restoring. You are mistaking recovering and restoring.

The process of restoring the database to a correct (consistent) state in the event of a failure. In other words, it is the process of restoring the database to the most recent consistent state that existed shortly before the time of system failure.

The frequency with which we create backups of our SQL Server database. It's a crucial factor in determining how much data we can potentially lose in a disaster and how quickly we can restore operations. Some of the key considerations are - * Business Criticality * Data Change Rate * Recovery Point Objective (RPO) * Recovery Time Objective (RTO) * Storage and its performance We can also automate the backups using SQL Server agent and also by using the third-party tools.

That would depend on your Data Size and how critical your application is, Full, Incremental, and Transaction logs are mostly the standards possible for a Database, the frequency can be evaluated after a calculation with a few considerations like: - Data Size; - Backup Duration (Full and Incremental); - Recovery Duration; - How big is the workload (how long to recover transaction LOGS); With that info is possible to design the best strategy, with the strategy implemented, take worse scenario possible for example take a Full backup from a week ago apply 1 week of transaction logs until crash time, and do a Recovery Test. With this time in hand check with Business with the RTO is accomplished.

é o valor em medidas de tempo da periodicidade em que o backup é efetuado, em alguns sistemas existem até cópias "replicadas", ou seja, é efetuada uma cópia em tempo integral dos dados para se garantir a alta disponibilidade.

As a rule of thumb, the frequency of a backup basically should be determined by the answer to the question "How much of a loss of data can I risk?". This doesn't have a clearcut answer but as a guide, let your response be determined by how often data changes on the database... Examples are an HR Database in comparison to Bank Database. While the traffic of data in the banking Database is so dynamic so much so that millions of data can be processed every hour across all channels, the data in the HR Database can remain unchanged for days if not months and as such while it's safe to use a daily backup for the HR Database, it would be disastrous to use same frequency for a Bank Database which would be safer with an hourly backup.

Backup frequency for any data depends on multiple factors. Two factors that often drive the frequency of RDBMS back up is risk tolerance and resource availability (i.e. cost). From the perspective of risk tolerance you need to consider your threshold for potential data loss, and lost productivity. If you can afford it then you should use fast incremental backups that are quick to restore. The backup schedule should be drive by the rate of data change. If, for example, you are a retailer that processes many transactions on daily basis you may want to backup hourly to fast readily accessible storage.

The most important is always to understand the RPO and RTO that you need to cover. If your database just needs RPO for one day (because the last day data was lost can be rebuilt), so, maybe a single one-time-per-day backup is enough. If you need more protection, maybe you need to include hourly backups for archivelogs (Oracle for example). But if you need RPO and RTO zero, maybe (and probably) only backups are not enough and you need to use features (for Oracle) like Data Guard and multi-site protection. These features are beyond backup.

There is only one way to determine the best backup frequency and that is determined by the amount of data loss that is acceptable if the database becomes compromised. If losing an hours worth of data is acceptable then your backup frequency should be one hour. However, there are also backup methods that backup every transaction in which case frequency doesn't even apply. Budget and resources should never influence frequency but it can influence the backup methods and/or strategy. Trying to find a balance between data protection and resource efficiency will just increase the amount of data that would be lost, so if your business could only afford to lose an hours worth of transactions, then you need enough resources to accomplish that.

The most important factor is always the RPO (and RTO). How much data can the business afford to lose? Also please note that there are different levels of backup. So the primary question to be asked is, what is your backup strategy, rather than backup frequency.

From my point of view and from experience, there is no pattern for a backup frequency. It all depends on the business requirement and the database management system chosen. But the tip I use is to take full, differential, incremental, log backups whenever we have the lowest system usage so we do not impact the system performance. From the business requirement we can draw a backup and restore plan.

Determining the best backup frequency requires balancing the criticality of your data, its update rate, acceptable data loss, desired recovery time, and resource constraints. Start with weekly full backups for crucial data, add frequent incremental backups for dynamic data, schedule during off-peak hours, and test regularly. Remember, there's no one-size-fits-all solution - find the sweet spot between data security and efficient resource utilization! Bonus points for diversifying backup types and locations for ultimate resilience. By carefully considering these factors, you can ensure your valuable data is always safe and sound!

This is one of the most avoided features and one of the most crucial features. We must regularly test the backups to avoid sudden surprises of database corruption. Via using RESTORE VERIFYONLY we can validate the backup. We should also monitor the backups to ensure we are having all the backups in place and available. * Backup Reports and Alerts * Backup History Tables

To piggyback on Harsh's response, If you don't test your recovery of a backup, How do you know the backup(s) is(are) good? You can generate a report that will tell you that the backup is successful. However, a backup can be "successful" but not adequate for your business requirements.

I am now convinced that whomever wrote this does not really understand basic concepts. "you can use faster and more efficient backup methods, such as incremental or differential backups, or backup compression or encryption" - encryption will improve your RPO and RTO? Really?

Revisiting your backup strategy, at least annually, will allow you to ensure that business requirements are being met. Business changes. It grows. It adapts. So, your backup strategy needs to grow and adapt with it.

@calin I think this was generated by AI (it mentions something at the top) and they want us to fill in with human experience.

* Backup encryption. * Backup Compression. * Type of storage. * Choosing appropriate recovery model. * Secure backup location. * Backup retention and its well-defined policies.

Once a week full backup, daily once incremental backup and every 4 hours archive log backup is sufficient for Oracle database backup.