Check your SQL backup automatically
Ever thought you had a good backup and it turned out it was missing when you needed a restore? Although a regular restore test is the least you can do, there is more. SQL Server stores backupinformation for all databases in msdb.dbo.backupset. A simple query shows you all databases that have no backup in the last two days:
SELECT DatabaseName = d.name
,LatetstBackUpDate = ISNULL(CONVERT(VARCHAR(30),MAX(b.backup_finish_date),120),’No backup’)
,’Days’ = MIN(DATEDIFF(hh,b.backup_finish_date,getdate())) / 24
,’Hours’ = MIN(DATEDIFF(hh,b.backup_finish_date,getdate())) % 24
FROM master.sys.databases d
LEFT OUTER JOIN msdb.dbo.backupset b ON d.name = b.database_name
WHERE d.name NOT IN (‘tempdb’,'model’)
GROUP BY d.name
HAVING ISNULL(MIN(DATEDIFF(hh,b.backup_finish_date,getdate())),999) >= 24 * 2 — change the 2 when you want to use a different amount of days
ORDER BY d.name
Wait, there is more! You don’t want to run this query every day by hand is it? Of course you can run it as a scheduled job on your database server, but even that can be a time-consuming task if you have a lot of servers. It would be better to run this query from System Center Operations Manager.