The following is a quick post on how to interpret Database Corruption. More specifically, we will be looking at SQL Server.
Sql Server is Microsoft’s popular database engine that uses Structured Query Language (SQL) to accept requests for data access. There are many types of corruption that can occur. Corruption usually occurs when there is an error involved with storage in the database. It can be as granular as down to the disk drive. Corruption can be caused by outages, bad entries or damaged storage environments.
To combat corruption a database administrator should consider periodic data and application backups. They must also consider proper back up identification, convenient and safe backup storage, physical protection of both hardware and software, personal access control to the software of a database installation and insurance coverage for the data in the database.
There are many different type of back ups supported by this SQL Server. For instance, there is copy-only backup which is a special use backup that is independent of the regular sequence of SQL Server Backups. Other examples include differential backup, full backup, log backup, file backup and partial backup. Differential backup is a back up that is based on the latest full backup of a complete or partial database and contains only the data extents that have changed since the differential base. Full backup is one that contains all the data in a specific database or set of filegroups and also enough log to allow recovering that data. Log backup is a backup of transaction logs that includes all log records that were not backed up in a previous log backup. A file backup is a backup of one or more database files or filegroups. Partial backup contains data from only some of the filegroups in a database, including the data in the primary filegroup, every read/write filegroup and any optionally -specified read only files.
It is essential to have a solid backup strategy as part of an organization’s efforts to maintain database transaction integrity. When data are not readily available, companies face potential ruinous losses. Data must be able to be fully recovered in case of data loss, loss of database integrity or corruption. These losses can be partial or total, therefore backup and recovery procedures are very critical.