Unify Your Backup and Recovery Strategy with LiteSpeed® for SQL ...

Unify Your Backup and Recovery Strategy 

with LiteSpeed ® for SQL Server 

and LiteSpeed ® Engine for Oracle 

Written by 

Tom Sager, 

DBA team leader 

E. ON U.S. 

Technical Brief

© 2009 Quest Software, Inc. 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 

This document contains proprietary information, protected by copyright. No part of 

this document may be reproduced or transmitted for any purpose other than the 

reader's personal use without the written permission of Quest Software, Inc. 

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TRADEMARKS 

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respective owners. 

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Aliso Viejo, CA 92656 

e-mail: info@quest.com 

Please refer to our Web site (www.quest.com) for regional and international office 

information. 

Updated—February 16, 2009 

TBD-Unified-BackupRecovery-US-AG

CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................1 

CHALLENGES OF DATABASE MANAGEMENT: 

DATA GROWTH AND DATA SECURITY..........................................................2 

DATA GROWTH............................................................................................. 2 

SECURITY AND COMPLIANCE ............................................................................. 3 

DEVELOPING A BACKUP AND RECOVERY STRATEGY .....................................4 

REQUIREMENTS ............................................................................................ 4 

BACKUP AND RECOVERY METHODS...................................................................... 4 

LITESPEED TO THE RESCUE.........................................................................5 

LITESPEED ADVANTAGES ................................................................................. 6 

ENCRYPTION LEVELS ...................................................................................... 6 

SETTING THE ENCRYPTION AND COMPRESSION LEVELS .............................................. 7 

SQL Server............................................................................................. 7 

Oracle ................................................................................................... 9 

OBJECT-LEVEL RECOVERY .............................................................................. 10 

SQL Server........................................................................................... 10 

Oracle ................................................................................................. 11 

USING LITESPEED: REAL-WORLD EXAMPLES ............................................ 12 

NEED BOTH COMPRESSION AND ENCRYPTION BUT BACKUP WINDOW IS SHORT ............... 12 

NEED COMPRESSION AND HAVE PLENTY OF TIME ................................................... 12 

NEED SPEED MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE ........................................................... 12 

SUMMARY ................................................................................................. 13 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR ................................................................................. 14 

ABOUT QUEST SOFTWARE, INC. ................................................................ 15 

CONTACTING QUEST SOFTWARE....................................................................... 15 

CONTACTING QUEST SUPPORT......................................................................... 15 

i

INTRODUCTION 

Technical Brief 

Database backup and recovery is becoming more difficult and more complicated. Two 

factors are putting a “double whammy” on today’s IT shops like never before: (1) the 

unabated explosion in data growth and (2) the ever-increasing need for data 

security. Further complicating these challenges is the fact that most IT shops use 

more than one database management system. 

As a database administrator (DBA) in a multi-platform shop, I have responsibility 

for developing and managing a database backup and recovery strategy that covers 

both Oracle and SQL Server while addressing our continued data growth and need 

for security. This technical brief explains how I use Quest’s LiteSpeed ® for SQL 

Server and LiteSpeed ® Engine for Oracle to effectively manage my fast-growing 

databases and comply with security requirements. 

1

Unify Your Backup and Recovery Strategy with LiteSpeed® 

for SQL Server and LiteSpeed® Engine for Oracle 

CHALLENGES OF DATABASE MANAGEMENT: DATA 

GROWTH AND DATA SECURITY 

Data Growth 

Everyone knows that the volume of data managed by IT shops is growing, but by 

how much? To find out, I have been tracking the size of the production database 

servers in my company. Figure 1 shows the growth of one group of servers: 

Figure 1. Recorded database growth 

Plotting that data on a curve reveals the projected growth of those servers for the 

next few years: 

2 

30 

25 

20 

15 

10 

5 

0 

Projected Production Database 

Growth 

2000 2005 2010 2015 

Figure 2. Projected database growth 

Terabytes 

Expon. (Terabytes)


Even I was surprised at the curve of that trend line! I knew we had more data, but 

I didn’t realize it was that much more. The data growth we are experiencing truly is 

exponential (an often overused term). If the projection is correct, I will be faced 

with backing up close to 30TB of databases within the next three years. 

Security and Compliance 

DBAs not only need to manage more data but we must also meet an increasing 

number of complex compliance and security standards. For example, I don’t yet 

encrypt all database backups, but that is clearly going to be a requirement in 

the future. 

Moreover, like many DBAs, I must manage multiple groups of databases with different 

auditing, security, and compliance requirements. In particular, I have “in-scope” 

applications that are subject to security requirements beyond the norm, and this list of 

in-scope applications is growing every year. Instead of treating the in-scope 

applications in a special way, I would prefer to simply subject all applications to the 

requirements of most secure application, and encrypt them all to the same standard. 

3



DEVELOPING A BACKUP AND RECOVERY STRATEGY 

Requirements 

A backup and recovery strategy must address both the data growth issue and the 

security issue. Specifically, a good database backup and recovery strategy must do 

all of the following: 

4 

1. Provide a similar level of service for all platforms 

2. Enable the DBA to maintain control over the backup and recovery 

operations and over the backup files themselves 

3. Maintain data security 

4. Minimize storage needs 

5. Minimize backup times 

6. Minimize recovery times 

Most of these points are obvious, but the second point—DBA control—is often 

overlooked. If performing a backup and recovery requires more than one group, 

then both the chances of error and the average human response time will increase 

dramatically. Ideally, a single DBA should be able to perform a complete backup 

and recovery operation alone, without needing to coordinate with or enlist the aid 

of someone in another group. 

Backup and Recovery Methods 

Database backup and recovery methods can be divided into these four categories: 

1. Native database backup utilities 

2. Disk-storage system split-mirroring 

3. Tape-storage system backup via DB agent 

4. Third-party database backup software 

For an in-depth look at the relative advantages and disadvantages of each, see the 

Quest white paper Backup and Recovery Options in a Multi-Platform Environment. 

The conclusion of that paper is that only a third-party product with the appropriate 

set of features is really capable supporting a backup and recovery strategy that 

effectively addresses all six needs listed above.

LITESPEED TO THE RESCUE 


Fortunately, quality third-party backup and recovery products exist, because the 

need for them is becoming urgent. Exponential growth is like a ticking time bomb; 

it can quickly overwhelm backup and recovery processes with little warning. Getting 

those processes under control now, before a crisis manifests itself, is the only 

responsible thing to do. 

Quest Software’s LiteSpeed products fit the bill perfectly for my organization. We 

use two products: LiteSpeed for SQL Server and LiteSpeed Engine for Oracle. They 

share the same “guts”—a rock-solid compression/encryption engine with a proven 

track record. 

LiteSpeed for SQL Server has been a market-leading backup and recovery utility for 

SQL Server for many years now. I have used it successfully to keep my largest SQL 

Server databases in check, eliminating the need to pursue another, less desirable 

backup and recovery approach (like SAN split-mirroring or direct-to-tape backups). 

While we originally adopted LiteSpeed to manage increasing database size, in 

recent years, we rely just as much on its encryption functionality, due to stricter 

compliance requirements. 

Having SQL Server backups under control left me wanting on the Oracle side. Some 

of our Oracle databases are even larger than our biggest SQL Server database, and 

while the native Oracle backup utility (RMAN) is capable of compression, it is 

painfully slow—for very large databases, so slow as to be unusable. Moreover, 

Oracle does not provide the means to encrypt a backup without an extra cost 

option (Oracle Advanced Security). 

Having capabilities with some applications but not others was becoming a serious 

issue. The auditing and security groups are not generally interested in excuses 

about why application A’s database backup is encrypted while equally important 

application B’s database is not. I urgently needed equivalent functionality on both 

database platforms. Now, with the release of Quest Software’s LiteSpeed Engine for 

Oracle, I can provide the same level of compression and encryption on all of my 

databases. 

5



LiteSpeed Advantages 

LiteSpeed provides consistent compression and encryption for SQL Server and 

Oracle, along with efficiency: 

6 

• Compression. LiteSpeed uses the same compression engine on both the 

Oracle and SQL Server platform, so the compression ratio for like data is 

reliably similar on both databases. 

• Encryption. LiteSpeed provides encryption for both SQL Server and 

Oracle. No matter what standard you adopt in your shop, encryption can 

be consistently applied across both database platforms. 

• Efficiency. LiteSpeed performs backup compression on the database 

server, in memory, before the backup is written to disk or shipped across 

the network to a tape system. All other methods require more storage 

and/or greater network utilization because the compression occurs after 

the backup is created. 

Encryption Levels 

LiteSpeed offers the following encryption levels: 

• AES128 (Advanced Encryption Standard, 128-bit) 

The most commonly used encryption cipher for software implementations. 

The ‘128’ indicates that a 128-bit key is used. This is strong enough for the 

US government to use for information classified as SECRET. 



The same ciphers but with longer keys. Certified by the US government for 

use with information classified as TOP SECRET. 

• 3DES (Triple Data Encryption Standard) 

Seems to be falling out of use in favor of AES. Widely thought to be less 

secure than AES. 

• LiteSpeed for SQL Server supports some additional proprietary encryption 

levels (RC2 and RC4).

Setting the Encryption and Compression 

Levels 


Both LiteSpeed products use the same engine to perform encryption. However, the 

method for configuring the encryption and compression levels is different for SQL 

Server and Oracle, so it can be similar to other operations on each platform. 

SQL Server 

In the SQL Server world, you can set the encryption and compression levels using 

the LiteSpeed Console on the Windows Server where LiteSpeed is installed, as 

shown below: 

Figure 3. Setting the encryption and compression levels for SQL Server using the 

LiteSpeed Console 

7



Alternatively, if a backup is executed from within a pre-existing SQL script, the 

encryption level can be set via an argument in the xp_backup_database extended 

procedure, as shown below: 

Figure 4. Setting the encryption level for SQL Server using the 

xp_backup_database extended procedure 

8

Oracle 


In the Oracle world, you can set the encryption and compression levels using the 

‘leo configure’ command in a command-line terminal session: 

Figure 5. Setting the encryption and compression levels for Oracle 

9



Object-level Recovery 

SQL Server 

Natively, Oracle has the edge over SQL Server when it comes to object-level 

recovery. However, LiteSpeed for SQL Server makes recovering individual objects 

in SQL Server even easier than it is using Oracle’s import utility. In fact, objectlevel 

recovery is one of the big advantages LiteSpeed for SQL Server has over its 

competitors. The details are beyond the scope of this paper, but the screen shot 

below demonstrates just how rich this particular feature is. 

Figure 6. LiteSpeed for SQL Server’s object-level recovery is feature-rich. 

10

Oracle 


LiteSpeed Engine for Oracle doesn’t really improve on the feature set of Oracle’s 

import utility, but it does dramatically improve the performance. For example, to 

recover a single table from an Oracle export file, the import utility must read the 

entire file. If that file is 300GB, processing it takes a long time, and a significant 

portion of that time is on I/O. Recovering a LiteSpeed Engine for Oracle file is much 

faster: the 300GB file has been compressed to about 30GB, and therefore will 

require only 1/10th the I/O to read through. 

Object-level recovery via LiteSpeed Engine for Oracle involves a simple import 

utility to restore a table back from an export file. The only difference is the “imp” 

command is prefaced with “leo”: 

Figure 7. Oracle object-level recovery 

11



USING LITESPEED: REAL-WORLD EXAMPLES 

To wrap up, I offer several scenarios I have addressed with LiteSpeed. 

Need Both Compression and Encryption but 

Backup Window is Short 

This is the most frequent scenario. Most of our “in-scope of compliance” 

applications have large databases and are very busy, with a limited window of 

availability for backups and other maintenance. Therefore, we need the backup 

completed as quickly as possible, while at the same time ensuring it is encrypted 

and compressed to reduce storage needs. 

LiteSpeed is the best choice for us in this scenario. LiteSpeed encrypts both our 

Oracle and SQL Server databases to the same encryption level, without the need 

for extra-cost Oracle options, and compresses them to about 10-30% of their 

original size—just as fast as the uncompressed, unencrypted native backup utility 

(and often faster). 

Need Compression and Have Plenty of Time 

We do have some large databases that see relatively light use. This is typical when 

an application stores a lot of data but accesses it infrequently, such as lookups on 

an historical billing database. 

In these cases, our primary goal is to reduce the storage needs of the backup as 

much as possible. Therefore, we want to maximize the compression, even if that 

means increased elapsed time and processor utilization. LiteSpeed addresses 

this situation nicely by allowing us to configure a higher compression level on 

both platforms. 

Need Speed More than Anything Else 

In some cases, the elapsed time of the backups is causing us the most pain. The 

speed of a backup depends on the size of the backup, disk I/O speed, processor 

speed, system utilization by other processes, and the compression and encryption 

levels. In most cases, we can achieve the fast backups we need with LiteSpeed by 

using the minimum compression level and no encryption. In fact, sometimes the 

backups are dramatically faster. 

12

SUMMARY 


Satisfying the requirements of a multi-platform database backup and recovery 

strategy requires software designed for that purpose. LiteSpeed for SQL Server and 

LiteSpeed Engine for Oracle are the perfect team, providing all of the functionality 

and performance needed for a best-practice backup and recovery strategy. 

13



ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

Tom Sager is a DBA team leader at E.ON U.S, a diversified energy services 

company. He has been with the company for 17 years, in application development, 

database administration and leadership roles. Tom has technical expertise in 

performance tuning, high availability and disaster recovery and his team also 

specializes in managing diverse database environments with mixed SQL Server, 

Oracle and DB2 environments. 

Tom is a prolific author who has published more than 50 articles on SQL Server, 

Oracle, DB2, mainframe, Windows and Unix. Tom is a member of PASS and has 

served on its board. He is also a member of IOUG and Quest’s Association of SQL 

Server Experts. 

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ABOUT QUEST SOFTWARE, INC. 


Quest Software, Inc., a leading enterprise systems management vendor, delivers 

innovative products that help organizations get more performance and productivity 

from their applications, databases, Windows infrastructure and virtual 

environments. Quest also provides customers with client management through its 

ScriptLogic subsidiary and server virtualization management through its Vizioncore 

subsidiary. Through a deep expertise in IT operations and a continued focus on 

what works best, Quest helps more than 100,000 customers worldwide meet higher 

expectations for enterprise IT. Quest Software helps organizations deliver, manage 

and control complex database environments through award-winning products for 

Oracle, SQL Server, IBM DB2, Sybase and MySQL. Quest Software can be found in 

offices around the globe and at www.quest.com. 

Contacting Quest Software 

Phone: 949.754.8000 (United States and Canada) 

Email: info@quest.com 

Mail: Quest Software, Inc. 

World Headquarters 

5 Polaris Way 

Aliso Viejo, CA 92656 

USA 

Web site www.quest.com 

Please refer to our Web site for regional and international office information. 

Contacting Quest Support 

Quest Support is available to customers who have a trial version of a Quest product 

or who have purchased a commercial version and have a valid maintenance 

contract. Quest Support provides around the clock coverage with SupportLink, our 

web self-service. Visit SupportLink at http://support.quest.com 

From SupportLink, you can do the following: 

• Quickly find thousands of solutions (Knowledgebase articles/documents). 

• Download patches and upgrades. 

• Seek help from a Support engineer. 

• Log and update your case, and check its status. 

View the Global Support Guide for a detailed explanation of support programs, 

online services, contact information, and policy and procedures. The guide is 

available at: http://support.quest.com/pdfs/Global Support Guide.pdf 

15

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