We use a large company as our service provider.
The tech people from that service company are pushing very hard to install something called the Avamar SQL Agent which purportedly will be used to replace my old reliable full, differential, and transaction log backups. I am told that it constantly monitors the mdf, ndf, and ldf files for any changes and then writes the changed items (pages, ???) somewhere (???).
I am all for new technology once it is proven but I am skeptical of this approach that I will no longer need to take SQL Server native compressed backups (again full, diff, and tlog).
So far I have taken the stand that I am not going to bless this adventure unless and until they can prove to me through testing that it does not foul up my mdf, ndf, and ldf files and that a restore is still possible. Here again I don’t know what or who would do the restore per se… is it some derivation of SQL Server restore, some Avamar restore, some combination, etc.
Does anyone have any experience with this product?
Best Answer
Please ask them and also, as max pointed out, test whether such tool can provide point in time recovery. Test various scenarios and see if it matches your RPO and RTO. I am sure its not free of cost only go if it REALLY provides some thing more than what native SQL Server Tsql backup provides. I have not found any tool more reliable than TSQL built in code for backup.
Ask them,if possible, to do a POC (proof of concept) and show you how it would be better than native TSQL backup. You have to let them know that there is no point in choosing any thing blindly if it does same work as a tool which you have free( inbuilt). You can professionally ask them above questions. Plus if you use such tool you might need to hire a person who is expert in this tool so might be some more extra cost.
Think all pros an cons and then move