??? What is the purpose of the snapshot? I find that the reason for using a database
snapshot is often taken for granted. Snapshots have many uses??”some related to
disaster recovery, some not. I have seen systems with literally hundreds of active
snapshots, all named in a way that makes it an exercise in frustration to try to find
the snapshot to use for a given purpose.
??? When will the snapshot ???expire???? I have seen systems with hundreds of database
snapshots. Why? Because snapshots don??™t ???expire.??? They aren??™t self-maintaining,
and you can??™t set a ???lifetime??? when you create them. Unlike with a database backup
file, you cannot set them to expire after a certain date or a specific number of days.
Having some sort of marker in the name that indicates the expiration date is necessary
in order to control snapshot ???expiration??? programmatically.
I recommend that you apply these four guideline questions when naming a database
snapshot. As a result, a practical name might be:
AdventureWorks_010120080900_YearStartProcessing_10
CHAPTER 9 n DATABASE SNAPSHOTS 236
This name is in the following format:
[Database]_[CreationDate]_[Reason]_[Days to Live]
When I see a snapshot named in this way, I know exactly what database it points to,
the data that it holds and why it holds it, and when it would be safe to remove it from the
SQL Server instance.
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