Back Up Database Task (Maintenance Plan)

Use the Back Up Database Task dialog to add a backup task to the maintenance plan. Backing up the database is important in case of system or hardware failure (or user errors) that cause the database to be damaged in some way, thus requiring a backed-up copy to be restored. This task allows you to perform full, differential, files and filegroups, and transaction log backups.

To create a backup database task

• How to: Create a Maintenance Plan

Options

• Connection
  Select the server connection to use when performing this task.

• New
  Create a new server connection to use when performing this task. The New Connection dialog box is described below.

• Databases
  Specify the databases affected by this task. When selected, the drop down list provides the following options: All databases, All system databases, All user databases, These specific databases.

• All databases
  Generate a maintenance plan that runs maintenance tasks against all SQL Server databases.

• All system databases (master, msdb, model)
  Generate a maintenance plan that runs maintenance tasks against each of the SQL Server system databases. No maintenance tasks are run against user-created databases.

• All user databases (excluding master, model, msdb, tempdb)
  Generate a maintenance plan that runs maintenance tasks against all user-created databases. No maintenance tasks are run against the SQL Server system databases.

• These databases
  Generate a maintenance plan that runs maintenance tasks against only those databases that are selected. At least one database in the list must be selected if this option is chosen.

  Note

  Maintenance plans run only against databases set to compatibility level 80 or higher. Databases set to compatibility level 70 or lower are not displayed.

• Backup type
  Shows the type of backup to be performed.

• Backup component
  Select Database to back up the entire database. Select File and filegroups to back up only a portion of the database. If selected, provide the file or filegroup name. When multiple databases are selected in the Databases box, only specify Databases for the Backup components. To perform file or filegroup backups, create a task for each database.

• Backup set will expire
  Specify when the backup set can be overwritten by another backup set.

• Back up to
  Back up the database to a file or to tape. Only tape devices attached to the computer containing the database are available.

• Back up databases across one or more files
  Click Add to open the Select Backup Destination dialog box, and provide one or more a disk location, or tape device.

• If backup files exist
  Select Append to add this backup to the end of the file. Select Overwrite, to remove any old backup in the file and replace them with this new backup.

• Create a backup file for every database
  Create a backup file in the location specified in the folder box. One file will be created for each database selected.

• Create a sub-directory for each database
  Select to place each database in a subfolder.

  Security Note
  Although maintenance plans can create subdirectories, maintenance tasks in SQL Server 2005 cannot delete subdirectories. This feature reduces the possibility of a malicious attack that uses the Maintenance Cleanup task to delete files.

  Important

  The subdirectory inherits permissions from the parent directory. Restrict permissions to avoid unauthorized access.

• Folder
  Specify the folder to contain the automatically created database files.

• Backup file extension
  Specify the extension to use for the backup files. The default is .bak.

• Verify backup integrity
  Verify that the backup set is complete and that all volumes are readable.

• Back up the tail of the log, and leave the database in the restoring state
  Perform a log backup as the last step before restoring a database. For more information, see Tail-Log Backups.

• Set backup compression
  In SQL Server 2008 Enterprise (or a later version), select one the following backup compression values:

  Use the default server setting	Click to use the server-level default. This default is set by the backup compression default server-configuration option. For information about how to view the current setting of this option, see How to: View or Change the backup compression default Option (SQL Server Management Studio).
  Compress backup	Click to compress the backup, regardless of the server-level default. Important By default, compression significantly increases CPU usage, and the additional CPU consumed by the compression process might adversely affect concurrent operations. Therefore, you might want to create low-priority compressed backups in a session whose CPU usage is limited by Resource Governor. For more information, see How to: Use Resource Governor to Limit CPU Usage by Backup Compression (Transact-SQL).
  Do not compress backup	Click to create an uncompressed backup, regardless of the server-level default.

• View T-SQL
  View the Transact-SQL statements performed against the server for this task, based on the selected options.

  Note

  When the number of objects affected is large, this display can take a considerable amount of time.

New Connection Dialog Box

• Connection name
  Enter a name for the new connection.

• Select or enter a server name
  Select a server to connect to when performing this task.

• Refresh
  Refresh the list of available servers.

• Enter information to log on to the server
  Specify how to authenticate against the server.

• Use Windows integrated security
  Connect to an instance of the SQL Server Database Engine with Windows Authentication.

• Use a specific user name and password
  Connect to an instance of the SQL Server Database Engine using SQL Server Authentication. This option is not available.

• User name
  Provide a SQL Server login to use when authenticating. This option is not available.

• Password
  Provide a password to use when authenticating. This option is not available.

See Also

Reference

BACKUP (Transact-SQL)