Someone on Server Fault asked a question about which versions of SQL Server support log shipping. He uses Express.
Log shipping uses SQL Agent, and Express doesn’t come with SQL Agent, but you can still manually log ship with PowerShell and Task Scheduler. Use the log backup script of your choice (I like Ola Hallengren’s, which can also be used with Task Scheduler), either back up to a share or copy the files to a share (perhaps with robocopy /mir?), and then run this or something like this (for a read-only copy):
$restoreserver=”YourServer”
$logbackpath=”C:\path\to\logs”
$standby=”C:\path\to\ROLLBACK_UNDO_YourDB.BAK”
$dbname=”YourDB”
$dbsearch = “SomeSearchString*”$logbacks = Get-ChildItem $logbackpath | Where-Object {$_.Name -like $dbsearch} | Sort-Object LastAccessTime
foreach ($logback in $logbacks)
{
$query = “RESTORE LOG [” + $dbname + “] FROM DISK = ‘” + $logback.FullName + “‘ WITH FILE = 1, STANDBY = N'” + $standby + “‘, NOUNLOAD, STATS = 10”
sqlcmd -E -S $restoreserver -Q $query
}
Or this (for an offline warm standby):
$restoreserver=”YourServer”
$logbackpath=”C:\path\to\logs”
$dbname=”YourDB”
$dbsearch = “SomeSearchString*”$logbacks = Get-ChildItem $logbackpath | Where-Object {$_.Name -like $dbsearch} | Sort-Object LastAccessTime
foreach ($logback in $logbacks)
{
$query = “RESTORE LOG [” + $dbname + “] FROM DISK = ‘” + $logback.FullName + “‘ WITH FILE = 1, NORECOVERY, NOUNLOAD, STATS = 10”
sqlcmd -E -S $restoreserver -Q $query
}
(If you’re copying and pasting, don’t forget to fix the “smart quotes,” which aren’t smart.)
