This from our MS-SQL person who has implemented TDP on a cluster:

For that large of a database (150-500 GB) there really is no such thing as
a quick restore.  Having a hot spare SQL Server is probably the best
solution -- i.e. another SQL Server that replicates the production SQL
Server data at specified polling intervals.  If the production server
dies, revert to the hot spare until the production server is fixed and
then revert back to the production server.

It certainly is possible to do nightly full database backups and then
hourly incremental backups (also referred to as "differential backups") ;
however, you must be careful about scheduling these since TSM server
doesn't have a means to specify start and stop time on schedules (at least
not to my knowledge).  Perhaps implementing a full database backup every
evening on a scheduler defined in TSM Server and then creating a cmd file
for incremental backups, but scheduling the incremental backups hourly in
NT with the AT command with defined start and stop times?  You don't want
an hourly incremental backup to begin while the full database backup is
still running.

At 10:55 AM 8/29/2000 -0600, you wrote:

Basic question:

Can I clone or snapshot an MS SQL 7 database and then take hourly
"incremental" backups and do the following restore:

restore the clone (either from tape or from the clone itself) and apply the
"incremental" restores?

I'm after a rather quick restore of a large database.  Perhaps between 150
and 500 GB.  I thought to use TDP or simply capture the logs by cloning or
snapshot or via the ba client.

Would I be better off simply snapshotting once per hour and leaving TSM out
of the picture?  Perhaps backing up the snapshot periodically for DR
purposes?  This customer wants to be able to get to a previous state of the
database but not go back 24 hours.  Loss of an hour's worth of data is
acceptable, but not 24.  What are others doing to meet this sort of a
requirement?

TIA,

Kelly J. Lipp
Storage Solutions Specialists, Inc.
PO Box 51313
Colorado Springs CO 80949-1313
(719) 531-5926
Fax: (719) 260-5991
Email: lipp AT storsol DOT com
www.storsol.com
www.storserver.com

Fred Johanson
System Administrator, ADSM
S.E.A.
University of Chicago
773-702-8464