Is your DBA talking about shrinking the log file or truncating the log? One thing to look out for here is the fact that these are two different things, and lots of SQL people can get confused about this. Truncating a SQL Server log is not the same as shrinking the physical file that houses the log (which is a logical construct, not a physical construct). When a log backup (backup log dbname to ...) is run, the log is truncated (as long as NO_TRUNCATE or NO_LOG is not specified). This means that space in the log file that is no longer needed for crash recovery is available for reuse. It does not, however, mean that the log file will shrink even one byte. To physically shrink the log file, you need to run a command like DBCC SHRINKFILE.
Good information about this is available in the SQL Server Books Online (sp3) in an article entitled "Shrinking the Transaction Log." This is *not* the same article that is online at microsoft.com, by the way. It may be that everybody at your shop is already clear on this, but I thought it was worth pointing out just in case. And by the way, TSM just does standard SQL backup calls - your DBAs can see this if they watch sessions in the SQL Profiler. The biggest problem with the TDP SQL client, and in my opinion it is a fairly glaring one, is that they give you no way to run RESTORE VERIFYONLY. This is a nearly crippling problem with respect to verifying backups in some environments - does anybody know if there are any plans to add this functionality in the future? Cheers, Chris _________________________________ Chris Leonard MCSE, MCDBA, OCP, CIW _________________________________ The Database Guy http://www.databaseguy.com Brainbench MVP for Oracle Admin http://www.brainbench.com _________________________________
