Sql-server – SQL Server – Snapshot is useful in production environments

snapshotsql serversql-server-2017

I'm reading about SQL Server high availability solutions and disaster recovery and among the available resources the SQL Server have snapshot feature. In theory all seems like beautiful.

I also read that a snapshot will copy a database at a point in time and you can use this to restore a database.

In this answer there is a comment (by Peter Schofield, 2013) about SQL Server snapshots not having support, and is useful in a development environment for quick rollbacks.

[…] Perhaps the biggest hindrance to adoption is that Management Studio didn't offer support[…]

[…] It sounds like an ideal use of snapshots in a dev environment just for quick script deployments and quick roll backs.[…]

I would like to know if snapshots are really useful in production environments. What are some examples of usage in production, and please include personal examples about when you've used snapshots to provide a solution on production systems.

The principal objective is provide some examples of real usage and through these examples get some useful ideas for me and for everyone who will be reading this post.

In my case I use SQL Server 2017 Enterprise Edition in production environment.

Best Answer

[...] Perhaps the biggest hindrance to adoption is that Management Studio didn't offer support[...]

By this he meant that you do not have feature in SSMS to create snapshot of database, you have to rely on TSQL command to create database snapshot. This is also mentioned in Create Database Snapshot official document

The only way to create a SQL Server database snapshot is to use Transact-SQL. SQL Server Management Studio does not support the creation of database snapshots.

I agree the use of word "support" is not entirely clear. It should be that SSMS does not allow database snapshot creation.

The database snapshot "may" be used in production, it all depends on what you want from it and how it suits your requirement. Before going further please read Limitation of Database Snapshot.. Paul Randal has few more points about what can go wrong with database snapshots

Related Question