Red Gate forums: SQL Object Level Recovery Native 1

RE: Backup Source does not show 'Available backups'

Manfred.Castro — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 15:45:15 GMT

I dont believe the restore time will be that much quicker with OLR Pro as the only difference between OLR Pro and OLR native is that native handles native backups and Pro handles SQL Backups sqb files.

RE: Backup Source does not show 'Available backups'

BarryFS — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 08:51:58 GMT

Thanks to both of you for responding.

I eventually cancelled the restore after approximately 7 hours, as it was still parsing the selected backup.
This means that the tool is, in effect, useless to me, as most of my live databases are 40 GB or more (which I don't think would be regarded as a 'large' database to many DBAs).

Unfortunately, I do not envisage my company purchasing Virtual Restore.
For information, what would you recommend as a maximum size database that could be handled by OLR Native??

Is the restore time etc any quicker with OLR Pro (which I believe is part of the Backup Prod tool)?

Best Regards
Barry

RE: Backup Source does not show 'Available backups'

RajK — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 03:10:00 GMT

Please note that the backup reader for OLR is sequential so for very large databases and object recovery this has performance impacts. We normally suggest using one of our other products (SQL virtual restore) to do this sort of object level recovery as mentioned by my colleague. Another advantage of using SVR is all the database objects are accessible after doing a virtual restore (mounting the database directly from a backup file to provide access). So you don't have to do any more recovery for additional access.

OLR should work better with smaller database backups.

RE: Backup Source does not show 'Available backups'

Manfred.Castro — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 17:39:24 GMT

Unfortunately SQL Object Level Recovery is not very robust in that it begins to struggle with larger databases.

We have another product that would be better suited for larger databases when trying to recover objects from a database.

http://www.red-gate.com/products/dba/sql-virtual-restore/

RE: Backup Source does not show 'Available backups'

BarryFS — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 13:09:20 GMT

The GUI says that it is Parsing the selected backup, and has been at 50% for at least 2 hours now.
This whole process has been running for over 4 hours now, and I still haven't been a list of available objects in the database, to enable me to select the table I want the tool to restore.
I had high hopes for this tool, as the option of restoring database objects is very appealing, but at this rate it would have been quicker for me to restore the whole database, copy-out the table I want, then drop the database again.

Are there plans to speed up access to the backup file(s) in future releases?
Is this process any quicker in 'SQL Object Level Recovery Pro'?

Best Regards
Barry

RE: Backup Source does not show 'Available backups'

BarryFS — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 10:01:13 GMT

Just a quick update, it has now completed the Available Backups section - maybe I was just being impatient.

However, it is worth pointing out, as others have done in posts that I have seen, this tool seems very slow at reading / checking a backup file, prior to performing the restore operation.

Backup Source does not show 'Available backups'

BarryFS — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 09:40:10 GMT

Hi,

This is my first time trying Object Level Recovery Native.
I have a compressed SQL Server backup, which I want to restore 1 table from.
The original database size is 90 GB, and the compressed backup file is 20 GB.
(The table I am restoring is tiny - less than 10 MB).
I selected the file in the Backup Source window, which took a very long time to validate, but eventually the 'tick' did appear in the OK column.
However, the 'Available Backups' section at the bottom of the same window does not show anything, and the 'OK' button is greyed-out.

Is this normal behaviour?

Should I expect a long delay between validating the backup file, and showing results in the Available Backups section?

Best Regards
Barry

RE: Parsing selected backup...forever

RajK — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 13:32:26 GMT

I hope your day is off to a good start? I am contacting you in regards to this support case. I have sent you this email below in response to your post. I am posting this here for your benefit as well.

I am really sorry about the poor experience you have had when you have tried this feature with a large backup file. Thanks for your response and feedback in this matter.

Please note that the backup reader for OLR is sequential so for very large databases and object recovery this has performance impacts. We normally suggest using one of our other products (SQL virtual restore) to do this sort of object level recovery. If access to this data is a priority at the moment then I would suggest you install this product and then get access to the object.

Thanks for your patience and feedback in this matter.

RE: TFE Encription

james.billings — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 07:12:09 GMT

Thanks for your post.

I wasn't immediately sure if the TDE was likely to be the problem or not (OLR can fail on some backup files just through sheer bad luck) but reading here it does suggest the backups can only be read on the original instance. Our tool doesn't have options to let you specify a certificate or similar.

So I think the only workaround if you need to recover specific objects/data would be to restore your backup as a temporary database then use SQL Compare (and Data Compare if you need to also recover data) to synchronize the objects in question back to the main database.

Parsing selected backup...forever

clintdavis — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 14:55:33 GMT

Well it seems like forever. I'm trying to recover a table from a 4.3 GB full backup file on a local drive. I've been waiting over 30 minutes and it's still parsing the selected backup. It shoots up to 50% and then hangs.

Considering I can restore the entire database in 26 minutes I would call this too slow. I checked the logs and they don't have any errors in them. Is this normal?

TFE Encription

CGLuttrell — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 19:34:39 GMT

Am I correct that this tool cannot read backups of databases encripted with TFE and a certificate? That is my experience, if I select one of those database backups it says "Error opening file: Attempted to read past the end of the stream."

RE: SQL Object Level Recovery native - Select Backup Source time

Brian Donahue — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:46:01 GMT

You may also want to check for log files in %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Red Gate\Logs to see if there is anything useful in there.

RE: SQL Object Level Recovery native - Select Backup Source time

Brian Donahue — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:43:22 GMT

Hi Geri,

If the backup file in question is a native backup, then the program has to seek all the way to the end of the file to find the "header" information. I realize that sounds a bit tail-about-head but MS has to do this for compatibility with tape drives.

SQL Backup files put the header at the front, so may work faster.

Either way, though, this operation should take minutes rather than hours.

I'm also aware that there is a search for the first page containing the schema, and that can be time-consuming.

I suppose the only way to work out what this software is actually doing is to debug it.

SQL Object Level Recovery native - Select Backup Source time

gsc_ghx — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 02:56:16 GMT

I have a 300gb database that I need to recover a few tables. I have selected the Backup Source (a full and a diff). The Diff file has the green check mark next to it, but the full still has the 'clock icon'. IT has been like that now for over 8 hours. How long does it take to validate this size of a file?

When this is running - what exactly is it doing? I don't see it loading information into memory or writing to my local disk? We are just curious what the process is behind the program.

Thanks
Geri Sue Coe

RE: Log Backups

Sian.Williams — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 12:56:15 GMT

Thanks for your question.

I'm not sure what the plans are for this product at the moment, however I have created a feature request for you. The request code is OLR-195 if you wish to chase it up in the future.

Thanks