Learned new stuff today when attending Cloud Platform University on Selling Azure and SQL Server for Business Continuity course.
As we understand SQL 2012 or 2014 allow you to backup to disk and tape as well as Microsoft Azure Storage.
You can use T-SQL or SQL 2012+ using SQL Server Management Studio. So how to backup prior version of SQL Server?
The answer is free “SQL Server Backup to Microsoft Azure Tool” enables an Azure-based backup strategy by supporting older versions of SQL Server (2005 - 2012). You can also incorporate encryption and compression for your backups – even for versions of SQL Server that don’t support these functions natively.
[ Pre-requisite ]
1. Create Azure Blob Storage Container
2. Only SQL version from 2005 or later
3. OS – Windows Server 2008 or higher, Windows 7 or later client operating system.
[ Configuration]
1.Download Microsoft SQL Server Backup to Microsoft Azure Tool from http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=40740
2. Use SQL Management Studio to configure backup first.
3. Use SQL Server Backup to Microsoft Azure Tool to get the SQL backup (*.bak) and transfer to Azure Storage.
4.Next step, specify the Azure Storage account that you’ve created on pre-requisite requirement.
5. Then you can either specify or not to include encryption & compression.
You will see a process “SQL Backup2Azure Service is exist on task manager.
Finally, you’ve successful created a rule that will redirect all local backups to the specified Windows Azure Storage when SQL Server has completed the backup process.
