Let's play with Azure SQL Database backup and the Point in Time Restore

Did you know that you can have: a full database backup once a week, a differential database backups once a day, and a transaction log backups every 5 minutes of your Azure SQL Database? Did you know that all this is done automatically when you are using the new Azure SQL Basic, Standard or Premier service tiers? Even more, you will have access to the Point in Time Restore self-service. In this post, I will show how to "configure" the database to get the automatic backups, and how to do a restore.

Setup the automatic backup

If you are like me, your Azure SQL Databases are set to Web or Business edition.  The first thing to do will be to change that. You will need to do it anyway since the Web and Business service tiers will be retired in September 2015[1].  That the only required since backup service are built-in the Basic, Standard and Premium tiers.

For the demo purpose, I will use the Basic tier. To change the tier of the database, go on the Azure Portal. In the left panel click on the SQL Databases et select the database that you want to update (ie: FrankDemo). Once the right section is updated, select the Scale tab and change the Service Tiers for: Basic.



Now, if you return in the Dashboard tab, a new option will be available.



Your database now has built-in backups to support self-service Point in Time Restore and Geo-Restore. Azure SQL Database automatically creates backups using the following schedule:

• Full database backup once a week
• differential database backups once a day
• transaction log backups every 5 minutes.

The full and differential backups are replicated across regions.

The retention period will vary between 7 and 35 days base on the selected tiers.[2]

Restore an Azure SQL Database

Restoring a database is really easy. Remember that new button at the bottom of the screen, it's now time to click on it.

This will bring the settings options. It's now time to type the name of your restored database. Note that you must use a different name than the original.  It's always a good practice to double-check that you are pointing on the good database on the correct server. Pick a restore point using the slider or by filling the date and time fields. When you are done click the button. The portal will let you know that the restore is successfully completed by a notification.




I hope that this post shows you how easy it is to use the backup/restore with Azure SQL Database. Thank you for ready, Any comments, suggestions and/or questions are welcome.



[1]: Web and Business service tiers will be retired in September 2015, more
details on the Windows Azure site.
[2]: Detail about the retention period on Azure SQL Database Backup and Restore



~ Frank Boucher

Reading Notes #131

Suggestion of the week

• Build End-to-End Apps with TypeScript (Gil Fink) - Amazing tutorial that gives the opportunity to learn a lot about recent language and tools. A mandatory reading for all web developers.

Cloud

• Windows Azure Websites online tools you should know about (Nir Mashkowski) - Nice quick and clear introduction to Kudu dashboard.
  
• Stupid Azure Trick #8 – Take control of Management Certificate names (Bill Wilder) - Nice clarification about certificate and security management in Windows Azure.
  
• Remote Administration of Windows Azure Websites using IIS Manager (Nir Mashkowski) - Soooo convenient. This post explains how we can remotely connect to a Windows Azure website with IIS.
  
• Stupid Azure Trick #7 – Use Windows Azure’s Local Storage Emulator with Web Sites & VMs (Bill Wilder) - Nice trick that explains how to use Azure emulator, because it's something we (or will) need.
  
• #WindowsAzure Lessons Learned : Don't be Afraid to Duplicate Data - Interesting re-design of a cloud solution.
  
• Announcing General Availability of Oracle Software on Windows Azure and Updates to Windows Azure Traffic Manager (Steven Martin) - Great new images and useful feature are now available.
  
• Tutorial: Finding Virtual Machine Images for Windows Azure in VM Depot (Ross Gardler) - That a very nice upgrade: an amazing search/sort engine.
  
• Is Your Application Built for the Cloud? - Interesting questioning about when to know if our application is built for the cloud, and nice list of pattern that are really well compatible with cloud solutions.

Programming

• NuGet Package of the Week: FluentAutomation for automated testing of Web Applications (Scott Hanselman) - Interesting tools to automate things like the ScriptCS.(Available via Chocolatey).
  
• Remove that dirty CSS! - Very useful tutorial that uses Node.js and Grunt.

Miscellaneous

• How to Clear Your Mind in 15 Minutes (Kevin Daum) - Sometimes to get more productive, we need to pause. Here are few tips on how-to achieve that.
  
• Why NOT measure progress using subjective percents - | Gunnar Peipman - Programming Blog - Interesting point of view about calculating project progress.
  
• Keepin' Track of Your Views - I found this post interesting because it explains how pageviews are counted.
  
• Logiciel libre : soyons clairs! (Laurent Bounin) - Very interesting point of view about open-source software (in French).
  
• Back to Basics: Assert your assumptions and diff your source code (Scott Hanselman) - Aah debugging... Never assume something. Thanks for sharing this story, I feel less alone now.

~Frank

Reading Notes #130

Suggestion of the week

• Distributed Automated Browser Testing with Selenium and BrowserStack (Scott Hanselman) - Testing the UI is never a walk in the park, and often the easiest solution is to use reall users. This post talk about two tools to automate these processes.

Cloud

• Azure: ExpressRoute Dedicated Networking, Web Site Backup Restore, Mobile Services .NET support, Hadoop 2.2, and more - Once again, a lot of new features available in windows azure are presented in this post. I'm looking forward to try this Expressroute and the web api support.
  
• Announcing Windows Azure ExpressRoute, new partnership with Level 3 and exciting updates to other Azure Services (StevenMartinMS) - This post gives more details about the new ExpressRoute of Azure presented last week.
  
• Windows Azure Mobile Services with .NET Backend (Shiju Varghese) - Great code sample that demonstrates how easy it is to do .Net web api for azure mobile services.
  
• WindowsAzure Lessons Learned : Be Stateful - Very interesting post that compares efficiency and cost of stateful application versus stateless.
  
• Code in the Cloud Using Visual Studio Online - It's magic! You can have Visual Studio without any installation...

Programming

• Using Claims in your Web App is Easier with the new OWIN Security Components (suhasbj, levibroderick, betty, on ap standa Daniel Roth) - Very useful informations about own and his ability to manage easily claims.
  
• Remove unused CSS in your Web Application - Nice tips to get better performance.

UX

• New UI and capabilities for Windows Phone App Studio Beta developers - Nice update for windows phone developer.