APPENDIX n SQL SERVER 2008 CONSIDERATIONS 322
To compress backups with SQL Server 2005 and earlier, you had to either purchase
a third-party SQL Server backup utility or include some sort of file-based compression
action after the initial native SQL Server backup. With SQL Server 2008, compression is
now supported with each and every backup (see Figure A-2).
Figure A-2. Every SQL instance has a default compression setting (on or off), which you can
override during each individual backup command.
Backup compression is either on or off; there are no varying levels of compression to
set. To enable backup compression at the instance level, you would use the sp_configure
command (I??™m hoping that by the time of release, you??™ll also be able to use the ALTER
SYSTEM command):
sp_configure 'backup compression default', '1'
Even with compression enabled, your backups will not necessarily shrink by the
same ratio. For example, if the database contains lots of character data, it should have
a high rate of compression (plain text compresses nicely). If the database contains binary
APPENDIX n SQL SERVER 2008 CONSIDERATIONS 323
data types such as TEXT, IMAGE, or VARCHAR(MAX), the ratio may be slightly less.
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