Setting up Microsoft SQL Server Database Backups

The most crucial component of the Ares system is the Microsoft SQL Server database. Most other Ares components can be replaced, but the Microsoft SQL Server database contains all of the request history, users, tracking and customization settings for the Ares system.

Making a Single Backup of the Ares Database

1. Open the Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio.
2. Under your server name, expand Databases and right-click on your Ares database.
3. Select Tasks - Back Up.
4. Under Backup type, choose Full to back up the entire database.
5. Under Backup component, choose Database.
6. The default backup destination will display in the Destination section. If you want to back up to a different destination, click on the Add button.
7. Switch to the Options page and under Overwrite media, choose Back up to the existing media set and Overwrite all existing backup sets. This does not matter for the first single backup file, but it would overwrite the file should you use the same destination for a backup later.
8. From either the General or Options page, choose OK.
9. The backup will begin. When it is completed you will see the message, "The backup of the database (database name) completed successfully." Click OK.
10. The backup file created is a copy of the entire Ares database that could be used to restore another machine.

Scheduling Regular Backups of your Ares Database

Set the schedule so the job is recurring. You can set up whatever schedule you want, but ideally, you should have one job that appends to the file and another job that overwrites that file once a week. For example, you can have the first job run daily at 10 pm and append to the file, changing it to append by selecting Append to the existing backup set on the Options page. Then make a second job that writes to the same file and overwrites it once a week, say Wednesday at 6 am. This would provide a backup file that had several database copies in it from each night (to allow you to catch a change that happened several days ago) and then overwrites it once a week to prevent the file from growing too large.

You can schedule your backup to overwrite each night as long as you are then copying that backup file to another location that would have a week's supply of backups. So if you backed that file up to tape each night after the SQL backup job ran, you would not need to append to the SQL job (using overwrite options) within Microsoft SQL Server.

To schedule regular backups of the Ares database, you will need to create a backup as described above and script it to a job:

1. Following the directions above, fill in the needed information for creating a database backup.
2. On the Backup Database screen, click the arrow next to the Script icon and select Script Action to Job.
   
3. On the New Job form, create the job by completing the necessary steps under Select a Page (General, Steps, Schedules, etc.). You will need to give a name to the job, its steps, and the schedule involved (Daily at 10 pm, for example).
4. When you are finished, click OK to save the job and close the form.