There could be a need where you have to restore a database that was deleted accidentally due to malicious intent or a plain old mistake (people end up writing resumes for such mistakes) or for some other inexplicable need! This is where backups come into the picture! For the Web and Business editions, this is not an option unless you have exported the database or you had made a copy of the existing database. Note that Business and Web service tiers will be retired in 12 months from April 24, 2014.

If you have just entered the world of Azure SQL Database, then this will seem even more difficult because you do not have the traditional scheduled backup job that you can trigger. So what is possible? Read on to find out…

Windows Azure SQL Database automatically creates backups of every active database using the following schedule: Full database backup once a week, differential database backups once a day, and transaction log backups every 5 minutes. The full and differential backups are replicated across regions to ensure availability of the backups in the event of a disaster. In addition, premium database offers the ability to create secondary databases in different regions to protect against datacenter disasters.

If you have played around with the new Azure SQL Database tiers (Basic, Standard and Premium), you will notice that there is a new tab available for Deleted Databases. This tab shows you the option of restoring a database (Basic, Standard and Premium tiers only) which was recently dropped. See screenshot 1.

I had dropped the bumblebee database which was a Basic tier database on 30th June. I can choose to restore this using the RESTORE button available at the bottom of the page. In the restore settings page popup page, you will have to specify the following:

1. Database name – This cannot be same as the original database

2. The time to which you want to restore available through a slider and text boxes. This is similar to the Timeline feature which was introduced in SQL Server Management Studio.

Note that the target server name cannot be changed. You will have to restore the deleted database backup to the same server. You cannot restore a database backup across Azure SQL Database Servers using this Wizard. Cross server restores are not currently supported.

While the database is restoring, you will see the database in the Databases tab but the status will show up as “RESTORING”. This is currently a PREVIEW feature. So you will need to sign up for the new database service tier preview to explore this feature.

Note that the deleted database backup is not retained indefinitely. As of July 1st, the following retention policy applies for the backups as shown in Screenshot 3:

More about Azure SQL Databases in a future post!

Reference:

Changing Database Service Tiers and Performance Levels
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/azure/dn369872.aspx

Azure SQL Database Backup and Restore
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/azure/jj650016.aspx