Full Backup
A full backup copies all the information in
the database. Full backups also include the transaction logs and any
data that has not been written to the database. In a small
virtualization environment, it is possible to run full backups for the
vCenter database. When the environment grows beyond 20 ESXi hosts, the
database can grow to 10–15 GB. In this case, a combination of full or
differential backups might be necessary.
1. Open the SQL Server Management Studio and connect to the SQL Server instance.
2. Navigate to the Server\Databases folder.
3. Right-click the database you want to back up.
4. From the shortcut menu, select Tasks, Backup.
5. In the Database
Backup dialog box, select the type of backup you want the server to
perform, the backup destination path, and the backup options.
6. Click OK to back up the database or click the Script button if you want to generate a script to run the backup with the selected options.
You can also run backups from the SQL command line by performing the following:
1. Browse to c:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Binn.
2. Run SQLCMD. The 1> prompt tells you that you are connected to SQL Server instance 1.
3. Enter the backup command, as shown in Figure 12.
Figure 12. The BACKUP DATABASE command.
The command to do a full backup is BACKUP DATABASE [Name of database] TO DISK = N’[PATH]’. In this example, we typed
BACKUP DATABASE vCenter TO DISK = N'S:\Backup\vCenter_12282011.bak'
4. To execute the command, type go and press Enter. The backup should process successfully, as indicated in Figure 13.
Figure 13. A successful backup.
To set up reoccurring backups, you need to
set up a maintenance plan under SQL and ensure that SQL Agent is
started. If you are running a SQL Express Edition, you need to look at
scheduling a SQLCMD command because maintenance plans are not available
in the Express Edition.
After the SQL Agent starts, you can set the
backups to happen according to a schedule. If you are not using a SQL
Express Edition, you should see the Maintenance Plans module under
Management, as shown in Figure 14.
Figure 14. Maintenance Plans module.
Create a Back Up Database task and set it up according to a reoccurring schedule, as shown in Figure 15.
Figure 15. Set a reoccurring schedule.
