Question : Problem: Legato  SQL Backups

Hello,
         I am using Legato for my backups. I am trying to set up a backup strategy for my SQL data bases which include a daily full and an hourly incremental....  There are 30 DB's most of them are not used but maintained for histrorical purposes....  The full backup is 156GB in size..   One hour later using Legato networker 7.2  The incremental size was 51GB in size..   and every hour after that it was the same size  Can some tell me why, with no changes to the DB's  The Legato backup size is so large      Is there a way to reduce the size?

Answer : Problem: Legato  SQL Backups

First problem is that it's not possible to do normal incremental or differential backups of SQL (or other transactional databases) so what they do instead is a full backup of the transaction logs and not backup the database.

Second problem is the way SQL (assuming MS SQL) allows transaction log files to grow indefinitely by default instead of occasionally creating a new log file.

Ckeck the logfile sizes and to shrink them create a new transaction log for each one and then run dbcc shrnkdb. The creating a new logfile speeds up the process mentioned on Q11 of http://support.microsoft.com/kb/195760/en-us. Some SQL versions allow you to shrink the file with a maintenance job created under enterprise manager instead of issuing the SQL command. Note the command is shrinkdatabase in some versions.