Updating A Remote Database Copy

Question

I have a SqlExpress DB on my server.  I have a remote copy for security/backup reasons.  Because the DB file(and .bak file) is about 2 Gb, it take a while to copy the whole thing to the remote machine.  I believe there is a way to use the log file to simply update my remote copy ratherr than copying whole files, but I don't know what this process is called to research it.  I have Brust's book on Sql Programming, but I have not found what I am looking for in there.  Can anyone tell me where I should be looking and what this process is called?
thanks,
Steve

Answer 1

You have several options.  You can create your full backup of your target database and restore the backup to the instance of sql express.  If you are restoring an instance of sql 2005 to sql express you can specify WITH STANDBY.  This leaves the database in read only mode, which means it is a viable option for a reporting source.  If you are running different versions than WITH STANDBY is not an option for you and you must restore WITH RECOVERY or WITH NO RECOVERY. 
Code Snippet
RESTORE DATABASE databasename
FROM DISK = 'c:\path.bak'
WITH STANDBY = 'c:\standby.txt'
Now you can schedule the restoration of the log backups and/or differential backups.  Since sql express does not ship with sql server agent you can either do this using the version of sql that you are restoring by using a linked server and distributed query or you can create a batch file and schedule this with Task Scheduler using sqlcmd. 
Code Snippet
RESTORE LOG databasename
FROM DISK = 'c:\path.trn
WITH STANDBY = 'c:\standby.txt'
This creates a "warm" stand by for you along with a reporting solution.  I utilize this method with our regular backup routine that provides the ability to remove load on our production servers by utilizing the backup as a reporting solution along with populating our data warehouse.  The regularly scheduled backups sit on separate physical drives outside of the production server so the disk I/O of the restoration is is also transparent to the production environment.
The same process can be implemented using log shipping for sql editions of workgroup or greater.  Log shipping provides a very similar process, but it is configured through a wizard, and in sql 2005 is actually an ssis package.
I utilize a clr function that returns the most recent t-log file and path to restore  each hour.  If this code interests you let me know and I will post it.