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SQL Azure Backups

Has anyone come up with a good way to do backups of SQL Azure databases?

The two approaches seem to be SSIS or BCP. SSIS looks like it requires a local install of MS SQL 2008 which I don't have. BCP looks a bit more promising but I haven't managed to find any examples of using it with SQL Azure as of yet.

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sipsorcery Avatar asked Jan 11 '10 23:01

sipsorcery


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2 Answers

At the PDC09 they announced SQL Azure Data Sync, which was an early preview that is designed to let you keep your local SQL Server in sync with an Azure SQL Server.

In terms of database backups for maintenance etc, then of course that is part of the service you pay for with Azure that MS manage.

The sync framework team have a blog on a number of issues surrounding data syncronisation between Azure and a local DB - http://blogs.msdn.com/sync/default.aspx

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Andrew Avatar answered Jan 01 '23 21:01

Andrew


My personal favorite solution is to use Azure Mobile Services to do a nightly backup & export from SQL Azure to a .bacpac file hosted in Azure Storage. This solution doesn't require a 3rd party tool, no bcp or powershell, is 100% cloud and doesn't require a local hosted SQL Server instance to download/copy/backup anything.

There are about 8 different steps, but they're all pretty easy: http://geekswithblogs.net/BenBarreth/archive/2013/04/15/how-to-create-a-nightly-backup-of-your-sql-azure.aspx

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Ben Barreth Avatar answered Jan 01 '23 22:01

Ben Barreth