You administer Windows Essential Business Server 2008 Premium Edition for your company. The database server runs SQL Server 2008 and is named SQL-Srv. SQL-Srv contains a database named Salesdb. You want to create several reports based on the Salesdb database without affecting the original database. You want to instantly create a copy of the Salesdb database to use for generating reports.
Which type of backup will allow you to perform this task?
A.
Full backup
B.
Snapshot backup
C.
Differential backup
D.
Copy-only backup
Explanation:
You should perform a snapshot backup. A snapshot is a read-only copy of a database at a specific point in time. A snapshot backup is a special type of backup that is created instantaneously without affecting the server. Any changes made to the database after this point in time is not available in the snapshot. A snapshot is always placed in the SQL Server instance on which the SQL Server database resides. Snapshot backups use a split-mirror provided by an independent software and hardware vendor, which prevents the use of SQL server resources to create the backup.The options stating full backup, differential backup, and copy-only backup are incorrect because these types of backups are not created as quickly as snapshot backups. SQL Server 2008 allows you to perform backup of a full database, a partial database, or a set of files and filegroups. SQL Server supports full or differential backups for each of these. A full backup contains an entire copy of the specified database and takes a considerable amount of time to complete, depending on the amount of data stored in the database. A differential backup contains only the data that has changed since the last full database backup was taken. Differential backups are smaller and faster than full database backups, but they are not created as quickly as snapshot backups. A copy-only backup is a type of backup that does not affect the overall backup and restore procedures for the database, as other conventional SQL server backups do.