Thursday, July 31, 2008

Scheduling Backups for SQL Server 2005 Express

"One problem with SQL Server 2005 Express is that it does not offer a way to schedule jobs. In a previous tip, Free Job Scheduling Tool for SQL Server Express and MSDE, we looked at a free tool that allows you to create scheduled jobs for SQL Server. The one issue people often face though is what to install and what not to install on their production servers and therefore these items go without resolution. One very important part of managing SQL Server is to ensure you run backups on a set schedule. I often hear about corrupt databases and no backups, so let's take a look at another approach of scheduling backups using the included tools in both the operating system and SQL Server."
 
This article provides an easy solution for using the SQL BACKUP command to backup a database and shows you how to use SQLCMD.EXE with Scheduled Tasks to schedule it to run automatically, thus giving you the scheduled backups functionality you would typically have in SQL Server Agent.
 

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