Today I needed to download a recent backup of a database from a server in the data centre for testing major changes to the database locally… Things don’t really go as well as I expect:
- Backup is 12GB. Yike, that’s going to take ages to download!
- OK, so let’s zip it. 20 minutes later… we have a 2GB zip file. Well, that was worth doing.
- Now copy (encrypted) zip to a server with HTTP access (much faster than downloading over SSH). About 1 minute (yep, nice fast network in the data centre)
- Download zip to database server on local network. Takes about 45 minutes.
- So try to unzip on server with Win Server 2003 Zip tool. Huh. It doesn’t support files > 4GB (plus it’s running low on disk space, so a bit of a juggling act to have enough space to unzip anyway).
- OK, move the zip file to a client machine. 5 minutes on LAN
- Unzip locally then move 12GB backup back to server. Best part of an hour. Yes, it’s a slow client machine and the LAN is only 100mbit.
- Try to restore to SQL Server. Oops, old version of SQL Server on that server.
- So install SQL Server 2008 on another server. That takes 45 minutes (including adding .NET framework).
- Can’t do anything with it until we have patched SQL Server. So download and run SQL Server 2008 SP3. 20 minutes to download.
- Installer starts while I’m not at computer, automatically cancels when screensaver starts (consent.exe)
- Drat. Download SQL Server 2008 SP3 again as IE has deleted installer from cache. This time I save the service pack installer. 20 minutes.
- Finally! Install SQL Server 2008 SP3. 10 minutes.
- Restore database to new server. 5 minutes.
And finally it works.
Why do the little things take so much energy?