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LiteSpeed for SQL Server 8.5 - User Guide

About Backing Up/Restoring with LiteSpeed LiteSpeed User Interface Configure LiteSpeed for First Use Cloud Back Up Databases Automate Maintenance Tasks Restore Databases Restore Objects View Activity and History Use Command-Line Interface Use Extended Stored Procedures Troubleshoot LiteSpeed Review Additional Resources

Supported SELECT Statements

LiteSpeed only supports a small subset of the possible T-SQL SELECT statements. In addition, it does not support computed columns and OUTER JOIN.

LiteSpeed supports the following syntax to execute SELECT statements against a backup file:

SELECT
[ TOP <expression> ]
<select_list>     
FROM <select_source>       
[ WHERE <search_condition> ]   
[ <offset_fetch> ]

<select_list> ::=
<select_item>     
| <select_list> , <select_item>  

<select_item> ::=
column     
| column_wild   
| column alias   
| alias = column   

<select_source> ::=
<table_source>     
| <select_source> , <table_source>   
| <select_source> JOIN <table_source> ON <search_condition>   
| <select_source> INNER JOIN <table_source> ON <search_condition>   

<table_source> ::=
table     
| table alias   
| table AS alias   

<search_condition> ::=
{ [ NOT ] <predicate> | ( <search_condition> ) }   
[ { AND | OR } [ NOT ] { <predicate> | ( <search_condition> ) } ][,...n]   

<predicate> ::=
<expression> { = | > | < | >= | <= | <> | !< | != | !> } <expression>     
| expression [ NOT ] LIKE string_constant [ ESCAPE 'escape_char' ]   
| expression [ NOT ] BETWEEN expression AND expression   
| expression [ NOT ] IN (expression [,...n])
| expression IS [ NOT ] NULL   

<expression> ::=
constant     
| column    

<offset_fetch> ::=
{ OFFSET { integer_constant | offset_row_count_expression } { ROW | ROWS }
[ FETCH { FIRST | NEXT } {integer_constant | fetch_row_count_expression } { ROW | ROWS } ONLY ] }

Examples

SELECT * FROM LiteSpeedActivity OFFSET 0 ROWS FETCH NEXT 10 ROWS ONLY

SELECT TOP 10 * FROM LiteSpeedActivity WHERE DatabaseID = 6

View Activity and History

View Backup Manager Activity and History

The LiteSpeed UI Console provides information about your backup processes in the Backup Manager tabs. Depending on what tree level and tab you select, you can view statistics on processes that fail or succeed, the amount of disk space you save, a list of all of the jobs for a server instance or database, and additional information.

You can view the backup activity and history by selecting the Backup Manager Server Tools Ribbon. Information about a category, subcategory, database, server instance, server group, or all of your server instances by selecting the appropriate level in the tree.

Tab Name

Available Level

Description

Overview

All

Displays information about the backup volume savings, successful jobs, and failed jobs.

You can view information about different dates by changing the Period field or select the dates from a calendar.

Databases

Server instance

Lists all of the server instance's databases with their state, recovery model, device, and backup destination.

You can right click on any instance and select backup, multi-database backup, restore, automated restore, backup analyzer, display backup/restore jobs, assign categories (available in some cases), refresh, properties, and activity.

LiteSpeed Activity

All

 

Displays all activity for the selected parameters, including activity type and status, duration, compression ratio, backup throughput (uncompressed backup size to backup duration ratio), Windows domain or SQL Server account that was used to initiate the backup or restore operation, and more.

You can change the parameters in the following fields:

  • Period—Select the time span, or select dates from a calendar. The options are all, last hour, last 4 hours, last 8 hours, last 24 hours, last 48 hours, last 72 hours, last week, last 2 weeks, and last month.

  • Report type—Select the type of activity to display. Select as a group: backup, restore, verify, and check database. Individually select: backup, restore, verify, check database, smart cleanup, maintenance plans, DTS packages, LiteSpeed jobs, log shipping plans, shrink database, update statistics, rebuild index, and reorganize index. Select Restore by Source to view restore and verify activity with restore destination for the selected instance/database.

  • Source—Select the type of backups to display, such as all, LiteSpeed or native SQL Server backups.

  • Status—View total instance status including all, success, warning, failure, and in progress.

You can right click on any instance and select: view in timeline, view details, and re-execute backup.

Tips:

  • To re-execute any successful or failed (and fast compression) backup, right-click the activity and select Re-execute Backup... You can edit the script if needed and run it immediately as a SQL Agent job or run it in the background. Note that the Re-execute Backup... menu item is only visible for LiteSpeed backups, and is enabled only for backups that were executed by using t-sql. If the LiteSpeed backup was executed using the command-line then the menu is disabled.
  • To view information about the native SQL Server backups and restores in the LiteSpeed UI Console, run the Instance Configuration wizard from the start menu and configure the local repository to be updated via a SQL Server job.

If you selected a database or server instance in the navigation pane, the tab also displays a timeline of activity. The timeline displays backups and restores from the past and those scheduled to occur in the future.

You can hover over an item for additional information about it. Right-click anywhere in the timeline to navigate to a date, change the time scale, or rotate the name of the databases.

Backup Templates

T-Log folder

Look up transaction log backup locations and scheduling details.

Backup Browser

Server instance

Displays backup directories and current backup files. You can restore the backup file or begin object level recovery from the files listed in the tab. You can also add directories, delete directories, or set a default directory.

After expending a directory and making a backup visible, you can right click on the backup and select restore, view content, convert to double click restore backup, and convert to native backup.

LiteSpeed Jobs

Server instance and Database

Lists all scheduled jobs. You can select different job types in the Jobs filter field.

Right click a job to select the options: change schedule, start, stop, enable jobs, disable jobs, delete, and view in job manager.

Further list, backup template, backup history, and backup analyzer information is provided in the following table.

Tab Name

Available Level

Description

List

Server group

Lists the instances in the server group with their display name, authentication method, SQL Server version, LiteSpeed version, and number of databases.

Backup Templates All

Displays the LiteSpeed Backup templates stored in the central repository. For more information, see Create Backup Templates.

In the Backup Templates tab, you can create, edit, clone, import, export and deploy templates, view the template contents, deployment details and modification history.

NOTES:

  • The Backup Templates tab is only available, if the central repository is configured and selected for use. To edit, deploy or remove a template when the central repository is not used, click beside Backup Templates on the toolbar and select the appropriate option.
  • The template deployment history is not exported when you export a template.

Backup History

Database

Lists all backups with their date and destination, including native SQL Server backups performed through LiteSpeed. The list also includes backups that have been replaced. You can view information about different dates by changing the Period field or select the dates from a calendar.

Backup Analyzer

Database

Analyzes different settings, such as compression level, striping, and backup destinations, to determine which settings have the best compression and duration values. For more information, see Test Optimal Backup Settings.

You can group server instances in the navigation pane tree based on their category or server group. Categories are similar to server groups, but they offer different features. For more information, see Change Server Instance Grouping Methods. 

Tip: For panes that have grids, you can sort, group, move, and remove the columns:

  • To sort and group the records, right-click a column header and select the appropriate options.
  • To sort records against multiple columns, click column headers while holding the SHIFT key. For example, to sort by type and then by name, click the Type column header and then SHIFT+click the Name column header.
  • To add or remove columns, right-click a column header and select Column Chooser. Add a column by dragging it from the list into the column headers. Remove a column by dragging its column header into the list.
  • To move a column, drag the column header to the new location.
  • After you refine the report criteria, you can print the results or export them to Excel. In addition, the tab has a timeline that displays the activity for the selected parameters by their date.

View Activity and History

View Maintenance Plans Activity and History

You can view information about the current state of existing maintenance plans and their execution history (CTRL+4).

Select a group, instance, or maintenance plan in the tree view to display the following tabs:

Tab

Description

Overview
  • At a group and instance level—Displays information about the backup volume savings, successful jobs, and failed jobs.
  • At a maintenance plan level—Displays maintenance plan latest status, name, owner, creation date, and last run date. 

You can view information about different dates by changing the Period field or clicking to select the dates from a calendar.

Maintenance Plans

Lists all maintenance plans for the server instance.

History

Displays execution history of the maintenance plans for the server instance.

NOTE: To view execution history of every task in a subplan, configure extended logging. Reporting and Logging in Maintenance Plans

Design

Create and edit maintenance plans.

NOTE: If you receive a message that the server does not exist or access is denied, make sure the instance is registered and connected.

Use Command-Line Interface

About Using the Command-Line Interface

LiteSpeed allows you to perform various tasks directly from the command-line interface (CLI).

NOTES:

  • You must run commands on the server instance on which you want to perform activity.
  • Review the Syntax sections to see which arguments are mandatory, which are optional, and which are mutually exclusive. Mutually exclusive arguments are separated by a vertical bar. Optional arguments are enclosed in square brackets. Round brackets are used to group arguments.
  • Review the Arguments sections for more information about the arguments and accepted values.

To perform tasks using the CLI

  1. Change the directory until you are in the directory containing the LiteSpeed command-line utility (Usually, C:\Program Files\Quest Software\LiteSpeed\SQL Server\Engine).

  2. Run a LiteSpeed utility with appropriate arguments.

    Use... If you want to...
    SQLLiteSpeed Perform backup/restore tasks. For more information, see LiteSpeed Command-Line Arguments.
    SLSFastCompression Back up a database using Fast Compression technology. For more information, see Fast Compression Command-Line Arguments.
    SLSSmartCleanup Delete old backups. For more information, see SmartCleanup Command-Line Arguments.
    SLSRecast Change backup options for the existing LiteSpeed backups. For more information, see Recast LiteSpeed Backups.
    Extractor Convert LiteSpeed backups to the native SQL Server backups. For more information, see Convert LiteSpeed Backups to SQL Server Backups.
    OLR Restore database objects. Restore Objects with the Command-Line Interface
    SLSSQLMaint Perform various database maintenance tasks. For more information, see Script Maintenance Plans Tasks.
    LicenseInfoCmd View currently installed license or to register a new key. For more information, see LicenseInfoCmd Utility.
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