Log-Shipping

SQL Server 2019 CU 16 Introduces Problems for Log Shipping

As a data professional managing SQL Servers, you need to be thinking about Windows and SQL Server patching.

You want to stay up to date, but you also have to be careful because sometimes staying fully up to date comes with the risk that a new patch might break a feature you are using. This is possibly the case for SQL Server 2019 CU 16. If you’re using Log Shipping on a database that has TDE enabled and compression is enabled on those backups, then you need to take heed.

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How To Use Powershell to Configure Multiple Databases for Log Shipping

I recently needed to configure log shipping for multiple databases at once as part of a migration project. I turned to PowerShell to do this.

But before we get to that part, this post assumes that you’ve done the upfront work to create shares for the backups to write to and for the backups to be copied to. This will involve providing the right permissions for the SQL Server service accounts involved in Log Shipping. If you are not familiar with this, that’s perfectly fine. Check out this article in MS Docs first.

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Steps to Catch Up Log Shipping Secondary

If you are using Log Shipping, there have probably been times that you have discovered that the Log Shipping Secondary is not up to date.  Perhaps you found out by right clicking on your SQL Server instance and running the performance dashboard report for Log Shipping Status.  If you are not familiar with this report check here. 

Perhaps there is a Reporting team that uses that secondary and they met you at your desk upon arrival, informing you that the database is not online so they can’t work yet. So what do you do when you realize that the secondary is so far behind that it is probably not going to catch up on its own?  This process assumes that you have a Log Shipping config set up to run a Log Shipping Restore job just prior to the beginning of the business day and that job leaves the database in Standby mode so it can be read from.  At the end of the business day the log shipping restore job has one or more schedules set to  kick off restores for the transaction logs during the business day.

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You Really Should Stay Current on Cumulative Updates

I have encountered a Log Shipping error that I want to detail as an encouragement for staying current on SQL Server cumulative updates. First, a little background. The environment is SQL Server 2014 Standard edition with a physical machine as the primary and two secondaries, both virtual machines backed by a flash storage system.   SQL Server is on service pack 1, cumulative update 1. Log shipping had been configured in this environment for many months, but SQL Server 2008R2 was updated to SQL Server 2014 some months prior. The Log Shipping Restore job leaves the database in the Standby Mode so it can be queried for reporting purposes.

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