Day 1 - > Geo-Replication/ Failover group setup. Why are the backups still listed and available on the new secondary if they are not usable? Hello Tim. SQL Server Database Backup and Restore with Windows Azure Blob Storage Cloud Services using T-SQL Commands, Automate Retrieving SQL Azure Bacpacs With PowerShell, Create Database Copies in Azure SQL Database, Copying SQL Server Backup Files to Azure Blob Storage with AzCopy, Using PowerShell to Restore an Azure SQL Database, Perform on-premises SQL Server database backups using maintenance plans to Azure Blob Storage, Long Term Storage for Azure SQL Database Backups, Restore an Azure SQL Database from one server to another server, Azure SQL Database Backup and Restore Overview, Migrating SQL Server Databases to Azure Managed Instances with Native Backups, How to use Azure Blog Storage for SQL Server Backup and Restore, Restore Azure SQL Database to Local SQL Server, Restore SQL Server Databases on Azure VM (IaaS) using Azure Backup - Part 2, Backup SQL Server Databases using Azure Backup - Part 1, Restore an Azure SQL VM using Recovery Services Vault, How to Restore Azure SQL LTR Backup After Azure SQL Instance Deleted, Azure Recovery Services Vault to Backup File Shares, Restore File Shares using Azure Recovery Services Vault, Options to backup SQL Server databases on Azure SQL VMs, Date and Time Conversions Using SQL Server, Format SQL Server Dates with FORMAT Function, Rolling up multiple rows into a single row and column for SQL Server data, How to tell what SQL Server versions you are running, Add and Subtract Dates using DATEADD in SQL Server, Resolving could not open a connection to SQL Server errors, SQL Server Loop through Table Rows without Cursor, Install SQL Server Integration Services in Visual Studio 2019, Using MERGE in SQL Server to insert, update and delete at the same time, Display Line Numbers in a SQL Server Management Studio Query Window, SQL Server Row Count for all Tables in a Database, Ways to compare and find differences for SQL Server tables and data, Concatenate SQL Server Columns into a String with CONCAT(), Searching and finding a string value in all columns in a SQL Server table. In fact we experience the same issues. This issue never happened when the server was version 11 (and given our frequency of restores to points in time, this is a large reference point for precision). To export a managed instance into a BACPAC file, use SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) or SQLPackage. Copyright (c) 2006-2022 Edgewood Solutions, LLC All rights reserved Failover groups is a disaster recovery feature that allows our customers to recover multiple related databases in a secondary region, after a catastrophic failure or other unplanned event that results in full or partial loss of services availability in the primary region. I used the same bacpac file and restored it to a version 11 server and version 12 server. After doing My name is Eli Fisher. so we can learn more about your experience using these capabilities.

Thanks for the post. version 11. However, some clients - like Wall Street traders - would not smile at waiting 15+ hours before having access to their data, so I'd highly advise to stay away from upgrading to version 12 and I'll update this tip when I see this issue consistently resolved (restores to point in times are a normal process). I waited a full day before restoring to a point in time; for both servers, the point in time was the exact same time UTC. so, we noticed issues with point in time restores taking longer than they did in If you would like, please fill out this survey so we can learn more about your experience using these capabilities. We also have a survey to collect feedback regarding the Azure SQL Database restore capabilities. The version 12 databases restored in 52 minutes and 53 seconds in round one, and 6 minutes and 18 seconds in round two. Do we expect to lose the PITR ability after failover? do these tests was that three different times, I had to cancel restore point in times because the time exceeded 15 hours on a version 12 server (after we upgraded the server from version 11 to version 12). SQL Managed Instance does not currently support exporting a database to a BACPAC file using the Azure portal or Azure PowerShell. This post has been republished via RSS; it originally appeared at: Microsoft Tech Community - Latest Blogs - . If you would like, please fill out. Learn how your comment data is processed. you can perform Export operation on the secondary and import it on Primary DR. You can leverage geo redundant backup and Geo-restore, taking into consideration that Geo-restore is the most basic disaster-recovery solution available in SQL Database and SQL MI. Get Started Now - Click here to get your free 14 day trial of SolarWinds Database Insights.

Generally, I recommend financial clients or clients with massive data sets (a When creating a new server, you can unselect the option "Enable latest SQL database update (v12)" and use version 11. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. This issue may be resolved in the future. On some occasions, after the failover is initiated, the current Primary DR will start a new backup chain from that point and old backups are available on the current secondary DR. It relies on automatically created geo-replicated backups with a recovery point objective (RPO) up to 1 hour and an estimated recovery time of up to 12 hours. If restores to points in time are a feature you use frequently, consider running multiple tests to confirm that the time frame of a version 12 restore does not affect any of your normal processes. If you have any feedback, please do not hesitate to provide it in the comment section below. This will tell you the status of the operations (see the column "operation" for the specific operation); you may barely notice this in a version 11 database because the restore times are so quick. Backups are only taken on the Primary server, there can be several justifications why we can see PitR on some DBs and not for others on the Secondary Server. The restore cannot be initiated on the primary as the backup is not there. Also, sometimes you will be seeing available PITR backups on, databases and for some databases it shows as No restore point available. , PITR backup retention is set to 7 days. The reason that led me to Restore a database from a backup - Azure SQL Database & SQL Managed Instance | Microsoft Docs, Automatic, geo-redundant backups - Azure SQL Database & Azure SQL Managed Instance | Microsoft Docs, Azure SQL Database Point in Time Restore | Azure Blog and Updates | Microsoft Azure, Azure SQL Database Geo-Restore | Azure Blog and Updates | Microsoft Azure. For some environments, this may not matter as much because they can be offline for an extended time. Opinions, tips, and news orbiting Microsoft. If you find yourself in version 12 and are unable to revert back to version 11 (keep in mind that you can create a version 11 server and migrate your databases back to it), then I would suggest dropping a restoring database if you think that it's hung (you'll have an idea through testing) and restart the restore. Comments like these help me strengthen my case to Microsoft support that this issue needs to resolved ASAP. Depending on your environment or Some names and products listed are the registered trademarks of their respective owners. As mentioned in my comment below, I am notifying people on this thread that we have fixed the restore performance issues for V12 servers.

We hope you find this article helpful. Also, sometimes you will be seeing available PITR backups on Failover secondary server databases and for some databases it shows as No restore point available For the databases where the restore point is available, they cant be able to restore it. I will respond to this forum when the fix reaches production. Database backups are an essential part of any business continuity and disaster recovery strategy because they protect your data from, It is important for us to understand that. If it does, I would suggest remaining in version 11. In today's blog article, we will try to address and clarify some points on how Azure SQL DB and Managed Instance Point in Time Restore (PiTR) works, especially when it comes to failover group and Geo-replication (Azure SQL DB), and we are going to provide answers to common queries. I first wanted to thank everyone here for their feedback regarding the performance of our restore capability on V12 servers. Both databases before the point in time restore were Standard S0. your clients, this may not be something that's acceptable. Eli Fisher (Microsoft Program Manager Azure SQL Database). One of our regular processes involves cloning a database environment and since the point in time feature is so quick in version 11 and allows us to use cloned databases for reporting, we use this feature daily (which is why we immediately noticed the spike in times post upgrade to version 12). Restore of DB about 150 MB in overall size took about 165 minutes (!!!).

You should be able to see more consistent and faster restore speeds. @Jan Thanks for the comment, and yes, we've seen insane restore times in version 12. At this time, this seems to be one way to work around this issue (though I'd love to hear other ways). To export a managed instance into a BACPAC file, use SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) or, Microsoft LMS Gateway is now generally available with Moodle (for Teams LTI apps), New technical research is advancing Azures Neural Text-to-Speech service, Microsoft Tech Community - Latest Blogs -, Renewing Azure Certification Without Any Additional Cost, Getting started with using Visual Machine Learning Tools for building your Machine Learning Models, Meet a recent Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador graduate: Momina Dar, Announcing General Availability of Scheduled Agent Updates on Azure Virtual Desktop, Demystifying Dependencies and Pricing of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Multi-Cloud Capabilities, Azure SQL Auditing to a storage account destination behind a Virtual Network or a Firewall, Deploying an Azure Logic Apps Standard workflow through Azure DevOps Pipeline. For those smaller clients or environments, this issue may be a reason to hold off upgrading for now, especially if the point in time restore is a feature you may use and you'll want your database online within a short time period. In case no geo-failover happened nor the database was recently created, and you still see no restore point available, please contact Microsoft support. Why do some databases show the restore point and why for few databases it shows no restore point available? We have identified the issue and are currently working on a fix which should align the restore speeds to be much more similar to the pre-V12 servers. For instance, when testing restores to point in times, generally in version 11 the length of time is anywhere from 4 to 16 minutes (testing up to 5GB); also a 500MB database may restore as fast or slow as a 5GB database. It should be fair to say that we will likely fail back once availability is restored in the original primary region because we might have picked that region for a reason. If you see issues, do not upgrade. For the Databases that have PitR it is most probably because there was a failover that caused the Primary to become Secondary, as we have already had backups taken on the old primary which is secondary now. in case the current region was not the primary at the desired point in time where your restoring point is holding, we will need to failover to the other region and make it as Primary, then you should be able to restore it. When one of my clients moved to version 12, we suddenly saw spikes in restore times. Unfortunately, stopping a restore and then restarting it does not guarantee that it will restore the database the second time. This tip will address the point in time restore feature in Azure SQL. Day 4 -> Customer would like to restore the database to the state of, which is possible as 7 days retention was set to PITR backups, and Day1 is 3 days back from current point in time. Database restore of XXXXX.TempSnapshot completed 50% running from 07/13/2015 11:47:18 for 1656.03916855167 minutes.

No problem :) actual situation: about 8 GB DBstill restoring more than 27 hours straight50% same all the time.. They could have been provisioned after the last failover happened, so the backups are only available on the primary server, Or they were added to the failover group after the last failover that will also cause the backups to be taken on the primary. Note: - In case no geo-failover happened nor the database was recently created, and you still see no restore point available, please contact Microsoft support.Alternatives: Note: Azure SQL Managed Instance does not currently support exporting a database to a BACPAC file using the Azure portal or Azure PowerShell. In addition, version 12 restores to point in times, even when successful, consume much more time than version 11 restores to points in time and this is with similarly sized databases (all less than 5 GB). In case the database was recently created, the first full backup might be still in the queue, so it might be a promising idea that you wait for some time before checking again. If we want to restore the backups which exists in Secondary it will not allow us to perform, apparently restore cannot be initiated on the Primary as the backup is not available. As an example, if I've tested a restore on a database that generally requires less than 20 minutes, if it exceeds an hour, I can drop the restoring database and restart it. For the databases where the restore point is available, they cant be able to restore it. Because there's always the possibility that this could be a subscription issue, I used a ceteris paribus approach to testing in a separate subscription: The results of testing were that the version 11 database restored in 4 minutes and 19 seconds in round one, and 3 minutes and 39 seconds in round two. The restore cannot be initiated on the secondary as this is not possible for Secondary DR. I've raised alerts to Azure engineers in that restores to point in times consume much more time in version 12 than in version 11. Also, sometimes we observe in secondary DR for few databases, PitR restore point is available and for few databases it shows no restore point available, As we are running backups only for the Primary DR, the new Primary in West Europe does not have the requested PITR backup (Day 1), The needed backup is visible on the backups listed for current secondary in North Europe, The customer cannot restore to requested PITR as. We also have a survey to collect feedback regarding the Azure SQL Database restore capabilities. Run some tests, compare times, and provided you face no issues, go ahead and upgrade. This will remove a database that is currently restoring if it's caught for too long. In the meantime, if you have any questions or concerns around Azure SQL Database Backup and Restore, please feel free to reach out to me at elfish at Microsoft dot com. Finally, I have interacted with a few Azure engineers about this and will update this tip when I get information about when this will be resolved, or when it resolves since this is a feature we use quite frequently. This article reflects the database backup options available for Azure SQL database and Azure SQL managed instance in June 2022. We recently updated SQL Azure version 11 databases to version 12. By: Tim Smith | Updated: 2015-06-16 | Comments (5) | Related: > Azure Backup and Restore. Another 2GB DB about 135 minutes now and not finished yet we are using PIT restore for staging/test data refresh process sooo annoying when this is taking so much time :-(. terabyte or more) use SQL Server, as it provides a ton of tools and support that allows DBAs to get things back online quickly. Please note that the products and options presented in this article are subject to change. I appreciate you taking the time to post your experience as well. I am a Program Manager working on Azure SQL Database.