How does log shipping compare to regular backups??

Question

I've learned a little about log shipping and understand that:

1) it's a little bit like having a 'warm database' for basic DR

2) it can complement one's regular full backups

We presently take nightly full backups and hourly log backups

Would log shipping help us at all?? Does it have any advantage over the above backup strategy of nightly full backups and hourly log backups??

This is with SQL Server 2008 R2 databases.

Thank you, Tom

Answer 1

Tom,

We can't really answer that question for you in terms of if it will help you as that is for the business to decide. They need to provide the requirements (RPO/RTO) and then given what you have/budget/approval to implement a solution to meet their requirements.

What we can tell you is that log shipping is just what it sounds like. The transaction log backups are taken, copied to another location and the remote instance applies the logs. The intervals for the log backups, copy, and restores are configurable. It's a very easy and cheap solution for having an extra copy of the database around.

-Sean

Answer 2

Leaving aside the items in the first paragraph, maybe my question should be:

1) since log shipping requires an additional SQL Server license on a separate Windows server, does it offer any particular advantages or additional features or abilities that replace or complement our existing backups???

Thank you, Tom

Answer 3

Log-shipping does not required separate licence when your production server is non-clustered instance and log-shipping server is the one and only Passive DR Server and it must have less than or equal to number of processes than you production db server -  

basically your production license will cover  1 passive node with out separate license -

please check more here for licensing http://www.sqlservercentral.com/blogs/pearlknows/2011/01/24/microsoft-sql-server-licensing-for-dummies/ 

coming to your question -  When you primary server crashed 

log-shipping will bring your back online on secondary server by restoring last few log backups with minimum down time.

where as with full backup - you must restore full backup first and all log backups on secondary server it requires more down time

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Answer 4

Log shipping is essentially quicker recovery time and an additional server to run/manage. :) :)

Though one still must do regular backups...the only problem I can see now is that one cannot run any log backups OTHER than the log shipping database server??

I'd rather do separate log backups plus have the log shipping server, in case all the SQL servers die and only the backups are available...

Thank you, Tom

Answer 5

Hi Tom,

It is allowed to perform full backup and log backup on primary to prevent data loss, but you need to use Copy-Only option, which is used to guarantee the backup doesn’t effect on the overall backup and restore procedures on secondary database. For more information: Copy-Only Backups.

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