Database Backups (& Restores) Best Practices

Ideal backup strategy is kind of tricky...  This is one of those 'It Depends' topics - budget, sensitivity, traffic, etc. all play into what's ideal for a given system.  My first step is try to get RTO/RPO numbers from management for a system before start making recommendations.  Most of the time I end up with something very close to what RandyKnight recommended.  After the general strategy is outlined, I start to tweak based on the amount of traffic a system sees.  For instance, I have a couple of prod DBs that we technically have a 1-2 hour RPO on, but are active enough that we're doing log backups every 15 min.  Keeping the logs that close has a few benefits - minimizing backup time & network traffic, keeping log file size down, increasing the chance that we'll catch backup errors early, etc.  

There is something to be said for 3rd party backup solutions as well.  Keeping track of backups instance by instance can be daunting when you've got lots of instances; a single pane from something like a CommVault/Veeam/Cohesity can simplify a lot while also providing some synergy with system backups.

And dang sometimes it is hard to get those RTO/RPO numbers out of management.

Also number of databases on a server factors into how often we do backups.  15 minute intervals when you have 500+ databases on a server (total size a bit shy of 20TB) gets taxing on the system.  It Depends indeed.

What do you mean?  The RTO/RPO targets are always "Now/absolutely zero data loss" aren't they?  Money is no object... until it is.

What do you mean?  The RTO/RPO targets are always "Now/absolutely zero data loss" aren't they?  Money is no object... until it is.