Prerequisites

With IBM Storage Protect Snapshot, you can back up and restore SQL Server data and protect your SQL Server environment.

• Security requirements for backup and restore operationsIBM Storage Protect Snapshot for SQL Server requires certain settings to process backup and restore operations in a secure environment.

• Choosing your Microsoft SQL Server backup strategy

  Depending on your SQL Server environment, you can run full backups only, copy-only full backups, full plus log backups, full plus differential backups, or file and group backups. Your backup strategy might also be to back up data to IBM Storage Protect or local shadow volumes.

• Data protection for Microsoft SQL AlwaysOn Availability Groups

  You can run VSS (full) and legacy (full, differential, file/set/group, and log) backup operations on a primary replica. You can run copy-only VSS and legacy backup operations, and normal log backups on a secondary replica. You cannot run a differential backup on a secondary replica.

• Preparing for VSS instant restore operations

  By using the VSS instant restore feature, you can restore one or more databases from a VSS snapshot backup on local shadow volumes that are managed by IBM Storage Protect Snapshot. Data is restored at the volume level.