Backup Windows Server 2003

SecureBackup fully supports Windows Server 2003. If you need to be able to back up your data from a Windows 2003 server than SecureBackup may fit the bill. SecureBackup will automatically backup your files and folders to a remote server. What’s more, we offer big discounts on several dedicated RAID redundant solutions as well as support smaller backup space needs. Simply contact us and ask for our price sheet.

SecureBackup offers mapped network drive support so you can backup files right across your network. This means you only need to install SecureBackup on one workstation under a designated Windows account. If you want to run backups at night or while you are busy doing something else, then you would simply press ALT+CTRL+DELETE and select the [LOCK Computer] button. SecureBackup will still run in the background and backup your files automatically.

Over the past year that we have been in business, we have worked with several companies to help them get SecureBackup up and running in their office. Why not give SecureBackup a try? Download SecureBackup here: http://www.securebackup.com/download or find out more at http://www.securebackup.com/pro. We have backup plans starting as low as $24.95 for 50 GB of backup space. Hope to speak with you soon!

Windows Mail is included with all versions of Windows Vista and is the successor to Outlook Express which was included with Windows XP. If you are using Windows Mail and want to backup your email autmatically, SecureBackup makes it easy.

The default location of where Vista stores your Windows Mail files is as follows:

C:\Users\{USERNAME}\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Mail

In this case, the {USERNAME} text above would be replaced with your actual Windows username.

If you were to open Windows Explorer and browse to your C:\Users\{USERNAME} folder, you would typically not see the “AppData” folder listed. This is because it is a hidden folder. SecureBackup, however, shows all hidden folders and allows you to browse them with ease.

Backup Windows Mail

As shown in the screenshoot above, you can easily browse to your Windows Mail folder. Simply check the box next to “Windows Mail” to backup all of your important email documents as well as other related information. For example, not only will your email and email folders be backed up, but your email account login information will be backed up as well. Your account login information is what you enter into the “Tools” -> “Accounts…” screen within Windows Mail when you setup your email account.

As you can see, automatically backing up your email with SecureBackup is both fast and painless.

For a MySQL installation on Windows Server 2008, 2003, or Windows Vista, backing up your databases can be performed in a couple of different ways.

The first method is more of a hack and involves backing up your entire MySQL “data” directory located somewhere in your “Programs Files” folder (ex:  C:\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL Server 5.0\data). But in order for this to work, you need to stop the MySQL server first and then restart it once the backup is complete. This means that your MySQL server is offline while the backup is performed. In addition to that, backing up your database this way is not a documented method. You are not guaranteed that it will work in future versions of MySQL. There are a few other “gotchas” as well. For example, restoring your backup won’t work if you don’t restore every single database folder that was originally in the MySQL data directory in the first place. In this case, the MySQL Server won’t even start.

THE CORRECT WAY TO BACKUP YOUR MYSQL DATABASES

If you want to play it safe, you should backup your MySQL databases the documented way. The tool of choice for this is “mysqldump.exe” which is located in your MySQL “bin” folder. You can use mysqldump from the Windows Command prompt while running as Administrator.

For those of you with experience in the *nix environment, you probably know how to redirect output to a file. You can do this in Windows with the Command Prompt as well.

If you placed the MySQL path in your Windows environment when you installed MySQL, you should be able to use a command like this in the Command Prompt to backup all of your databases:

mysqldump -uroot –pYOUR_ROOT-PASSWORD --all-databases > “C:\all-databases-backup.sql"

To backup only one database, you could use:

mysqldump -uroot –pYOUR_ROOT-PASSWORD DATABASE-NAME > “C:\database-backup.sql"

Of course, for the above commands to work, you need to substitute the MySQL root password with your own password. The root password was created when you ran the MySQL Server Instance Configuration Wizard during the install process of your MySQL server.

One thing I’ve found is that you should not leave a space between the -u and -r parameters in your mysqldump command. Other than this, it’s rather straight forward to create a MySQL database backup.

If you want more information about mysqldump, click here.

SECURE, COMPRESSED, AUTOMATED ONLINE BACKUP

If you need an automated backup solution for your MySQL databases, you can use a Windows batch file to perform the above mysqldump commands and then set the batch file to run automatically in Windows Task Scheduler. If you also need an automatic online backup solution, you can use SecureBackup™. Simply tell SecureBackup™ where your database backup files are located in one of your backup jobs. I also want to mention that the *.SQL backup files created above are really just text files and can be quite large. SecureBackup™ will automatically compress these files during the backup process and significantly reduce not only their size, but the time it takes to backup these files over the Internet. They will also be encrypted with 256-bit AES encryption.

Today I wanted to talk about how to setup an automatic SQL Server backup solution and also how to back it up online with SecureBackup. I am using Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Express but you should be able to use these instructions for all versions of Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008.

In my case, the database files are located in the following directory:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.SQLEXPRESS\MSSQL\DATA

As you may already know, you cannot backup the *.MDF and *.LDF database files directly because they are attached to the SQL Server. You could detach them, back them up, and then re-attach them but then your database will be offline for a period of time.

To solve this problem, we first need to create a SQL file that can be used later to automate our database backup. Here’s how we can do that:

CREATE AN SQL FILE

1. Login to Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio.
2. Right click on your database from the “Databases” node.
3. Select “Tasks” -> “Back up…”
4. You are now presented with the “Back up Database” window. In this window you can specify your backup settings. At a minimum, you need to create a destination for your backup. Click the “Add” button and specify a full path name for your database backup in the “File name” field. You will need to use this path name later, so let’s take note of it.
5. You can choose any other backup options that are important to you. Over on the left hand side is “Options”. I would click on that and decide whether you want to use “append to an existing backup set” or “overwrite all existing backup sets”.
6. Once you are finished with your settings, you need to create an SQL file which will be used later for the automated database backup. To create that SQL file, click on the arrow next to “Script” at the top of the window. There will be an option for “Script action to File”. Go ahead and select that option. You will then be able to save your SQL Server Script File. Take note of where you have saved this file as well.

CREATE A BATCH FILE

Now that we have created the SQL file, we need to create a batch file that can be automatically executed by the Task Scheduler. To create this file, do the following:

1. Open Notepad and enter the following:
   sqlcmd -S .\SQLEXPRESS -i "C:\Users\Administrator\Documents\Backup.sql"
   Of course, substitute the pathname with the pathname of where you saved your SQL file.
2. Save this file and take note of where you saved it.
3. Now, using Windows Explorer, go to the directory of where you created this file and rename it to have a .bat filename extension instead of .txt.

SET BATCH FILE TO RUN IN WINDOWS TASK SCHEDULER

We are now ready to add the batch file to the Task Scheduler. Rather than using the Task Scheduler GUI, I prefer to do it on the command line. You can open a command prompt as Administrator or if you are already running as Administrator, you can use Start -> Run. Either way, enter the following:

schtasks /create /sc Daily /st 03:30:00 /tn "MyTask" /tr "cmd /c C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop\Backup.bat"

Again, substitute the pathname above with that of your batch file.

Also, set the time specified to something that is desirable for you. In the above example, we run this task at 3:30 AM.

SET SECUREBACKUP TO BACKUP YOUR DATABASE

The time specified in the Task Scheduler step above is important because you need have SecureBackup automatically backup the database file after the task is complete. Since the backup took place at 3:30, you can setup SecureBackup to run the backup at say, 4:00 AM. This way you will have the most recent backup.

From within the SecureBackup software, you need to create or edit an existing  Backup Job and include the location of the backup file that you chose in step 4 of “CREATE AN SQL FILE” above. If the file isn’t listed and you can’t select it from within SecureBackup, it’s because Windows Task Scheduler has not run your batch file yet. To run the batch file, simply double click on it from within Windows Explorer. It may take anywhere from 10 seconds to, possibly, a few hours depending on how large your database is. Once complete, you will have your database backup file and can select that file from within SecureBackup. You will also be able to schedule the Backup Job around how long it took for that batch file to complete.

You now have an automated backup solution for your Microsoft SQL database complete with a secure online storage solution. I hope this post was helpful to you.