What does the SQL Backup Agent do?

terrihawkins

Hi, I just updated from version 3.? to 5.3.... version 3 did not have a service running with it (at least not one I saw), and I was just wondering what it does in V5... is it for doing remote scheduling or something? Or is it just to do normal backups and restores?

thanks

Brian Donahue

Hi Terri,

The SQL Backup Agent does pretty much everything, to be honest. In version 3, the extended stored procedure used to simply call sqlbackupc.exe. Now, the xp sends commands to the Agent via a Windows mutex and the service does all of the backup work. This approach makes the program more modular, secure, and reliable in the sense that much less of the work is done in the SQL Server process.

terrihawkins

Thank you, that is most helpful!