Use of Log shipping and normal transactional backups

colby

Need your help.

Currently the database has transactional backups every hour, differential daily and fulls weekly. Can I use the normal transactional backups for log shipping? Would this scenario work. Location A is where normal transactional backup go. Location B is where I want log shipping backups to go. Can I set up log shipping backups to go to Location B and when they are used then go to Location A as there final resting place. Do I need to change anything in my normal transactional from Location A to Location B?

Thanks

colby

Matthew Flatt

Hi Colby,

Providing I understand your situation properly this is possible.

On your current transactional backup you can add a COPYTO location to copy the backup files to a place where Server B can access. This might be a network share on Server A, network share on Server B or network share on a different machine both Servers can access.

The restore job on Server B will then restore from this network share, once completed the backup file can be moved to a network share or folder that is accessible.

If you want to keep only one copy of the backup file on Server A you can set SQL Backup to delete the copy after a retention period.

I would advise running the Log Shipping Wizard in SQL Backup on a small test database, you can then use Enterprise Manager/SSMS to view the job step syntax and edit your existing jobs accordingly.

Please let me know if you need any further info.