The Art of SQL Server FILESTREAM - Red Gate Software

Chapter 10: Integrating FILESTREAM with other SQL Server FeaturesTo configure log shipping of FILESTREAM-enabled databases, the secondary serversmust be running on SQL Server 2008 and have FILESTREAM enabled. Beyond this, onepoint you might need to pay attention to is the connectivity between the primary andsecondary servers. Transaction logs shipped using log shipping will include FILESTREAMdata as well, which will make the shipped logs very big if your database deals with a lotof FILESTREAM operations involving large BLOB values. It is also important to understandthat, when a FILESTREAM value is updated, SQL Server creates a new file with themodified value. This new copy of the file will be included in the transaction log backupwhich has an impact on the overall size of the transaction log backups.FILESTREAM and Full-Text IndexingFull-text indexing works with FILESTREAM columns in just the same way as withVARBINARY(MAX) columns, with the only difference being that the 2 GB limit is notapplicable when indexing FILESTREAM columns.Just like VARBINARY(MAX) columns that do not have the FILESTREAM attribute,full-text indexing requires a column that stores the extension of the documents stored inthe FILESTREAM column. SQL Server looks at this column to determine the documenttype, loads the appropriate IFilter, and indexes it.More about full-text indexingA detailed explanation of full-text indexing is beyond the scope of this book. For more information, Iwould suggest you take a look at Books Online at: http://brurl.com/fs13.For a quick look at how SQL Server indexes FILESTREAM columns using full-textindexing, let's create a table with a few FILESTREAM data values, as shown inListing 10-9.371