An enterprise database server hosting mission-critical transactional services suffered a storage array failure on Thursday at 2:15 PM. The organization's backup policy includes a full system backup executed every Sunday at 11:00 PM, daily incremental backups performed Monday through Wednesday at 11:00 PM, and hourly transaction log backups captured at the top of every hour. Arrange the recovery actions in the correct sequential order to restore the database to the point of failure with zero data loss while minimizing operational downtime.
- 1Restore the Sunday night full system baseline backup.
- 2Apply the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday incremental backup sets in chronological order.
- 3Replay the hourly transaction log backups in sequence from Thursday 12:00 AM up to Thursday 2:00 PM.
- 4Perform a database integrity check and reconfigure network service endpoints to direct client traffic to the restored database.
Answer
The correct recovery sequence is: 1) Restore the Sunday night full backup, 2) Apply the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday incremental backups in chronological order, 3) Replay the Thursday hourly transaction log backups up to 2:00 PM, and 4) Verify database integrity and switch network service endpoints.
Point-in-time restoration across complex backup schemes follows a strict hierarchy: establishing the initial full backup state first, applying every intermediate incremental backup chronologically without skipping any set, replaying granular transaction logs up to the time of disruption, and finally conducting verification before cutting over active network services.
Step-by-Step Solution
Key Concept
Data Recovery Sequence for Full, Incremental, and Transaction Log Backups