Blue Nile College, COVID-19 Emergency Response Reading Material

TVET PROGRAM TITLE: Database Administration Level III

MODULE TITLE: Completing Database Backup and Recovery

MODULE CODE: ICT DBA3 M07 0811

NOMINAL DURATION: 75 hrs

MODULE DESCRIPTION

This module covers the knowledge, skills and required to back-up and recover a database

LEARNING OUTCOMES:

At the end of the module the trainee should be able to:

LO1 Review database architecture

LO2 Determine backup methods appropriate to database requirements

LO3 Establish recovery points and disaster recovery procedures

Completing Database Backup and Recovery Page 1

 Blue Nile College, COVID-19 Emergency Response Reading Material

LO1: Review database architecture

1.1 Identifying architecture of a database file system
Physical structure of database
 Physical Architecture
o Tells about how the data is actually stored in file system of an operating system.
o Page, extent, database file, transaction log files, etc. are core components of physical
architecture.
 Logical Architecture
o Tells about how the data is logically grouped and presented to the user.
o Tables, constraints views, stored procedures, functions, triggers etc. are core components of
logical architecture.
 Components of database Architecture include:
- Page - Database File
- Extent(scope) - Database File Group
- Table - Transaction Log File
- Index
i. Page is the smallest unit of storage in SQL server.
ii. An extent consists of 8 adjacent pages.
iii. An index is a set of one or more keys which is used to speed up access to data in a table. It is a
separate physical data structure that enables queries to access one or more data rows fast.
iv. Database File: SQL Server uses three types of files to map a database to file system of
operating system:
1. Primary Data File– It is the starting point of the database and points to the other files in the
database. Every database has one primary data file.
2. Secondary Data File is any data file other than primary data file. A database may or may
not have secondary data files.
3. Log file - Log files hold all the log information that is used to recover the database. There
must be at least one log file for each database.
V. Database File Group: Database files can be grouped into file groups for allocation and
administration purposes.
File groups can be two types:
. Primary – It contains primary data files and pages of system tables.
. User-defined – These are created by database users.
vi. Transaction Log File: DB engine uses transaction logs to maintain integrity of database and
for data recovery.
Transaction log file consists of log records of operations performed and are stored sequentially.
Following types of operations are logged
a. The start and end of each transaction. Every data modification (insert, update, or
delete) by system stored procedures or data definition language (DDL) statements to
any table, including system tables.
b. The logical operation performed: The before and after images of the modified data
1.2. Identifying risks and failure scenarios
Database security concerns the use of a broad range of information security controls to protect
databases against compromises of their confidentiality (secrecy or privacy), integrity/reliability and
availability (ease of use).
It involves various types or categories of controls, such as technical, procedural/administrative and
physical control.
Security risks to database systems include:
Completing Database Backup and Recovery Page 2
 Blue Nile College, COVID-19 Emergency Response Reading Material

 Unauthorized or unintended activity or misuse(use wrongly) by authorized database users,

database administrators, or network/systems managers, or by unauthorized users or hackers
Example: Inappropriate access to sensitive data, metadata or functions within databases, or
inappropriate
changes to the database programs, structures or security configurations.
 Malware infections causing incidents such as unauthorized access, damage to the data or
programs.
 Physical damage to database servers caused by computer room fires or floods, overheating,
lightning, electronic breakdowns/equipment failures.
 Data corruption and/or loss caused by the entry of invalid data or commands, mistakes in
database or system administration processes, sabotage/criminal damage etc.
Types of information security control appropriate to databases include:
* Access control * Encryption
* Auditing * Integrity controls
* Authentication * Backups
Database Failures can be due to:
. System crashes, resulting in loss of main memory.
. Application software errors.
. Natural physical disasters.
. Carelessness or unintentional destruction of data or facilities.
. Statement Failure: e.g. - When a program attempts to enter invalid data into a database
table.
. User Process Failure: e.g. - A user process may be terminated suddenly or unexpectedly
. Network Failure: e.g. - The network interface card or the network connection has failed.
. Instance Failure
- Hardware failure.
- A power failure.
- An emergency shutdown procedure.
. User Error
- Accidentally dropping a table.
- Wrongly modify or delete data from a table.
. Media Failures
- Lose a disk or a disk controller fails or a head crash
- File corruption
- The overwriting or deletion of a data file

Completing Database Backup and Recovery Page 3

 Blue Nile College, COVID-19 Emergency Response Reading Material

LO2: Determine Backup methods appropriate to DB requirement

2.1 Backup and recovery concepts
Database backup is the process of dumping data (from a database, a transaction log, or a file) into
backup devices that system creates and maintains.
Recovery is the process of using the backup media to replace uncommitted, inconsistent, or lost data.
Therefore, Backup and recovery refers to the various strategies and procedures involved in protecting
your database against data loss and reconstructing the database after any kind of data loss.
The SQL Server backup and restore component provides an essential safeguard for protecting critical
data stored in your SQL Server databases. To minimize the risk of catastrophic data loss, you need to
back up your databases to preserve modifications to your data on a regular basis.
A well-planned backup and restore strategy helps protect databases against data loss caused by a
variety of failures.
2.2. Database Recovery techniques
Preventing data loss is one of the most critical issues involved in managing database systems.
Data can be lost as a result of many different problems:
 Disk failures (physical problems)
 Viruses
 Incorrect use of UPDATE and DELETE statements
 Software bug(Program errors) or transaction (some operation) error
 Administrator (human) errors
 Computer failures (system crash) such as hardware, software or network error
 Catastrophes (Disasters such as fire, flood, earthquake) or theft
If database has been damaged:
- Need to restore last backup copy of database and reapply updates of committed transactions
using log file.
If database is only inconsistent:
- Need to undo changes that caused inconsistency.
To prevent data loss, you can implement a recovery strategy for your databases.
Using Full Database Backups
A full database backup contains all data and database Meta information needed to restore the whole
database.
When you restore a full database backup, it restores all database files yielding data in a consistent state
from the time the backup completed.
From full database backup, it is possible to recover a database to the state it had when the last backup
occurred.
Using Differential Backups.
the differential backup stores only the data changes that have occurred since the last full database
backup. When the same data has changed many times since the last full database backup, a differential
backup stores the most recent version of the changed data. Because it contains all changes since the
last full backup, to restore a differential backup, you first need to restore the last full database backup
and then apply only the last differential backup.
Using Transaction Log Backups
The transaction log backup is a backup of transaction log entries and contains all transactions that have
happened to the database. The main advantages of transaction log backups are as follows:
 Transaction log backups allow you to recover the database to a specific point in time.

Completing Database Backup and Recovery Page 4

 Blue Nile College, COVID-19 Emergency Response Reading Material

 Because transaction log backups are backups of log entries, it is even possible to perform a
backup from a transaction log if the data files are destroyed. With this backup, it is possible to
recover the database up to the last transaction that took place before the failure occurred.
2.3. Recover immediate update
Immediate update, or UNDO/REDO, is another algorithm to support ABORT and machine failure
scenarios.
Database may be updated by some operations of a transaction before the transaction reaches its
commit point.
- Commit means Make changes done in transaction permanently. A transaction is a set of SQL
statements.
If a transaction fail after recording some change to the database, but before commit point, the effect of
its operations on the database must be undone (transaction must be rollback).
- Undo Operations need to be performed for all unfinished transactions.
2.4. Shadow paging
Shadow paging is a technique for providing atomicity and durability in database system. A page, in
this context, refers to a unit of physical storage.
Shadow paging is a copy-on-write technique for avoiding in-place updates of pages.
In shadow paging, when a write_item operation is performed:
 A new copy of the modified DB page is created and the old copy is not overwritten.
 The new page is written elsewhere on some unused disk block.
 The current directory entry is modified to point to the new disk block.
 The shadow directory is not modified.
Shadow copies; the current copies of data items

2.5. The ARIES Recovery Algorithm

Algorithm for Recovery and Isolation Exploiting Semantics (ARIES) is an example of recovery
algorithm which is widely used in the database systems. It uses steal/no-force approach for writing the
modified buffers back to the database on the disk. This implies that ARIES follows UNDO/REDO
technique.
The ARIES recovery algorithm is based on three main principles which are given here.
 Write-ahead logging: This principle states that before making any changes to the database, it is
necessary to force-write the log records to the stable storage.

Completing Database Backup and Recovery Page 5

 Blue Nile College, COVID-19 Emergency Response Reading Material

 Repeating history during redo: When the system restarts after a crash, ARIES retraces all the
actions of database system prior to the crash to bring the database to the state which existed at
the time of the crash.
It then undoes the actions of all the transactions that were not committed at the time of the
crash.
 Logging changes during undo: A separate log is maintained while undoing a transaction to
make sure that the undo operation once completed is not repeated in case the failure occurs
during the recovery itself, which causes restart of the recovery process.
The ARIES recovery procedure consists of three main steps:
- Analysis: It identifies the dirty (updated) pages in the buffer and the set of transactions active at the
time of crash.
- REDO phase: It actually reapplies updates from the log to the database. Generally the REDO
operation is applied
to only committed transactions.
- UNDO phase: The log is scanned backwards and the operations of transactions that were active at the
time of the crash are undone in reverse order. The information needed for ARIES to accomplish its
recovery procedure includes the log, the transaction table, and the dirty page table.
2.6. Recovery in multi DB system
A multi-database consists of a collection of autonomous local databases.
To maintain the atomicity of a multidatabase transaction, it is necessary to have a two-level recovery
mechanism.
A global recovery manager or coordinator is needed to maintain information needed for recovery, in
addition to the local recovery managers and the information they maintain (log, tables).
In MDBSs, recovering multi-database consistency has a twofold meaning. First, for global transaction
aborts, recovering multi-database consistency means to undo the effects of locally committed
subsequences belonging to the aborted global transactions from a semantic point of view.
In addition, the effects of transactions which have accessed objects updated by aborted global
transactions should be preserved (recall that, after the last operation of a subsequence, all locks held by
the subsequence are released).
For the other types of failures, recovering multi-database consistency means to restore the most recent
global transaction-consistent state.
2.7. DB Backup from Catastrophic failures
Failure can happen for any number of reasons.
 User error is the number one reason for data damage, loss, or corruption.
This type of failures include: application modifying or destroying the data on its own or through a
user choice.
 Media failure can happen when the media of the data files or transaction logs failed.
 Disastrous or catastrophic event. This can be in the form of fire, flood, or any naturally occurring
storm.
It can also happen through electrical outage, a virus, or the deliberate hacking of your data. Any of
these can corrupt or cause the loss of your data.
The recovery manager of a DBMS must be equipped to handle more catastrophic failures such as disk
crashes.
The main technique used to handle such crashes is that of database backup. The whole database and
the log are periodically copied onto a cheap storage medium such as magnetic tapes. In case of a

Completing Database Backup and Recovery Page 6

 Blue Nile College, COVID-19 Emergency Response Reading Material

catastrophic system failure, the latest backup copy can be reloaded from the tape to the disk, and the
system can be restarted.
To avoid losing all the effects of transactions that have been executed since the last backup, it is
customary to back up the system log at more frequent intervals than full database backup by
periodically copying it to magnetic tape. The system log is usually substantially smaller than the
database itself and hence can be backed up more frequently.
Hence, to recover from disk failure, the database is first recreated on disk from its latest backup copy
on tape.

Completing Database Backup and Recovery Page 7

 Blue Nile College, COVID-19 Emergency Response Reading Material

LO3. Establish recovery points and disaster recovery procedures

3.1. Determine recovery points
Restoring is the process of copying data from backup and applying logged transactions to the data to
roll it forward to the target recovery point. Each backup contain sufficient log to roll back
uncommitted transactions to bring the database into a state that is transitionally consistent and usable.
The process of rolling forward uncommitted transactions, if any, and bringing the database online is
known as recovery. The goal of roll forward is to return the data to its original state at the recovery
point.
The recovery point is the point to which the user specifies that the set of data be recovered.
3.2. Test the restore process
To restore a file from backup device to a location on the hard drive, you have to follow Database
Restore and Recovery Procedure.
The basic procedure for performing restore and recovery with RMAN(Recovery Manager) is as
follows:
 Determine which database files must be restored from backup, and which backups (which
specific tapes, or specific backup sets or image copies on disk) you will use for the restore
operation.
 Place the database in the state appropriate for the type of recovery that you are performing.
 Restore lost database files from backup with the RESTORE command. You may restore files to
their original locations, or you may have to restore them to other locations if, for instance, a
disk has failed.
 Perform media recovery on restored data files, if any, with the RECOVER command.
 Perform any final steps required to make the database available for users again.
The backup and restore process of a large database or collection of databases on sql server is very
important for disaster & recovery purposes.
 Backing up and restoration of your MS SQL Server 2008 Database using the
Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio.
To backup your MS-SQL Server 2008 Database through MS-SQL Server Management Studio
Express, follow the steps shown below:
First, you need to configure the Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio on your local machine.
Step 1: Open your Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio.
Step 2: Using your Database Username and Password, simply login to your MS SQL server database.
Step 3: Select the database >> Right-click >> Tasks >> Back Up [as shown in the image below]:

Once you click on the “Backup” the following Backup Database window will appear.

Completing Database Backup and Recovery Page 8

 Blue Nile College, COVID-19 Emergency Response Reading Material

Step 4: Select the following options:

1. Backup type: Full
2. Under Destination, Backup to: Disk

Step 5: Now, by clicking on the “Add” button, the following window will appear to select the path
and file name for the database backup file [as shown in the image below]:

Step 6: Select the destination folder for the backup file and enter the “File name” with .bak extension
[as shown in the image below]:

Completing Database Backup and Recovery Page 9

 Blue Nile College, COVID-19 Emergency Response Reading Material

Make sure you place your MS SQL database .bak file under the MSSQL backup folder.
Step 7: Hit the OK button to finish the backup of your MS SQL Server 2008 Database. Upon the
successful completion of database backup, the following confirmation window will appear with a
message “The backup of database “yourdatabasename” completed successfully. [as shown in the
image below]:

Following the above shown steps, you will be able to create a successful backup of your MS SQL
Server 2008 Database into the desired folder.

How to Restore MS SQL Server 2008 Database Backup File?

To restore a database from a backup file, follow the steps shown below:
Step 1: Open your Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio.
Step 2: Select the database >> Right-click >> Tasks >> Restore >> Database [as shown in the
image below]:

Completing Database Backup and Recovery Page 10

 Blue Nile College, COVID-19 Emergency Response Reading Material

Step 3: The following “Restore Database“windows will appear. Select “From device” mentioned
under the “Source for restore” and click the button in front of that to specify the file location [as shown
in the image below]:

Step 4: Select the option “Backup media as File” and click on the Add button to add the backup file
location [as shown in the image below]:

Completing Database Backup and Recovery Page 11

 Blue Nile College, COVID-19 Emergency Response Reading Material

Step 5: Select the backup file you wish to restore and Hit the OK button [as shown in the image
below]:

You will get the confirmation windows with a message “The restoration of database
“yourdatabasename” completed successfully.” Now you know the procedure of backing up and
restoring MS SQL Server 2008 Database.

Completing Database Backup and Recovery Page 12

 Blue Nile College, COVID-19 Emergency Response Reading Material

Step 6: Once this has completed, a pop-up will say the database has been restored successfully. Click
OK.

You can create a back up and restore using SQL transaction code: use master
BACKUP DATABASE Employee TO DISK = 'D:\Employee.bak'
restore DATABASE Employee from disk= 'D:\Employee.bak'

Completing Database Backup and Recovery Page 13