Problem
Sometimes things that seem complicated are much easier then you think and this is the power of using T-SQL to take care of repetitive tasks. One of these tasks may be the need to backup all databases on your server. This is not a big deal if you have a handful of databases, but I have seen several servers where there are 100+ databases on the same instance of SQL Server. You could use SQL Server Management Studio to backup the databases or even use Maintenance Plans, but using T-SQL is a much simpler and faster approach.
Solution
With the use of T-SQL you can generate your backup commands and with the use of cursors you can cursor through all of your databases to back them up one by one. You could also use a while loop if you prefer not to use a cursor. This is a very straight forward process, and you only need a handful of commands to do this.
How to Backup All SQL Server Databases
- Specify path to store database backups
- Specify backup file name format
- Select list of databases to backup
- Loop through databases
- Programmatically create database backup command using database name, path and file name format
- See attached SQL Server backup script
Database Backup File Name Format DBname_YYYYMMDD.BAK
Here is the SQL backup script that will allow you to backup each database within your instance of SQL Server. You will need to change the @path to the appropriate backup directory.
-- source: https://www.MSSQLTips.com
-- https://www.mssqltips.com/sqlservertip/1070/simple-script-to-backup-all-sql-server-databases/
DECLARE @name NVARCHAR(256) -- database name
DECLARE @path NVARCHAR(512) -- path for backup files
DECLARE @fileName NVARCHAR(512) -- filename for backup
DECLARE @fileDate NVARCHAR(40) -- used for file name
-- specify database backup directory
SET @path = 'C:\test\'
-- specify filename format
SELECT @fileDate = CONVERT(NVARCHAR(20),GETDATE(),112)
DECLARE db_cursor CURSOR READ_ONLY FOR
SELECT name
FROM master.sys.databases
WHERE name NOT IN ('master','model','msdb','tempdb') -- exclude these databases
AND state = 0 -- database is online
AND is_in_standby = 0 -- database is not read only for log shipping
OPEN db_cursor
FETCH NEXT FROM db_cursor INTO @name
WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0
BEGIN
SET @fileName = @path + @name + '_' + @fileDate + '.BAK'
BACKUP DATABASE @name TO DISK = @fileName
FETCH NEXT FROM db_cursor INTO @name
END
CLOSE db_cursor
DEALLOCATE db_cursorDatabase Backup File Name Format DBname_YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS.BAK
If you want to also include the time in the filename you can replace this line in the above script:
-- specify filename format
SELECT @fileDate = CONVERT(NVARCHAR(20),GETDATE(),112)with this line:
-- specify filename format
SELECT @fileDate = CONVERT(NVARCHAR(20),GETDATE(),112) + '_' + REPLACE(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(20),GETDATE(),108),':','')Adding Additional Items to Backup Command
To add additional options, such as backup progress (stats) and compression, you can change this line in the script:
BACKUP DATABASE @name TO DISK = @fileName with this line:
BACKUP DATABASE @name TO DISK = @fileName WITH STATS=10, COMPRESSIONThere are plenty of other backup options you can add.
Notes
In this SQL Server backup script, we are bypassing the system databases, but these could easily be included as well. You could also change this into a stored procedure and pass in a database name or if left NULL it backups all databases. Any way you choose to use it, this script gives you the starting point to simply backup all of your databases.
Also, if you wanted to bypass some of your user databases you can include them in the NOT IN section as well.
Next Steps
