What is a simple command line program or script to backup SQL server databases?

Question

I\'ve been too lax with performing DB backups on our internal servers.

Is there a simple command line program that I can use to backup certain databases in SQL Serv

Answer 1

I found this on a Microsoft Support page http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2019698.

It works great! And since it came from Microsoft, I feel like it's pretty legit.

Basically there are two steps.

1. Create a stored procedure in your master db. See msft link or if it's broken try here: http://pastebin.com/svRLkqnq

2. Schedule the backup from your task scheduler. You might want to put into a .bat or .cmd file first and then schedule that file.

   sqlcmd -S YOUR_SERVER_NAME\SQLEXPRESS -E -Q "EXEC sp_BackupDatabases @backupLocation='C:\SQL_Backup\', @backupType='F'"  1>c:\SQL_Backup\backup.log            
   

Obviously replace YOUR_SERVER_NAME with your computer name or optionally try .\SQLEXPRESS and make sure the backup folder exists. In this case it's trying to put it into c:\SQL_Backup