Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2000 Backup/Restore Architecture The backup and restore components of Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2000 allow you to create a copy of a database. This copy is stored in a location protected from the potential failures of the server running the instance of SQL Server. If the server running the instance of SQL Server fails, or if the database is somehow damaged, the backup copy can be used to re-create, or restore, the database. SQL Server 2000 provides these sophisticated backup and restore capabilities: • Options for how a database is backed up and restored: • A full database backup is a full copy of the database. • A transaction log backup copies only the transaction log. • A differential backup copies only the database pages modified after the last full database backup. • A file or filegroup restore allows the recovery of just the portion of a database that was on the failed disk. These options allow backup and restore processes to be tailored to how critical the data in the database is. Noncritical databases that can be easily re-created from some other source may have no backups, other databases may have simple backups that can re-create the database to the night before a failure, and critical databases may have sophisticated backups that will restore the database right up to the point of failure.