[plug] [OT] web error

[Steve Baker]

Russ Powers wrote:
> 
> Seems odd that a full log file could kill your web. Is this a mickeysoft 
> thing or common with sql?

It's the database transaction log file.  It records information about 
all transactions that occur on the database.  You can set an option so 
that logging info is discarded as transactions are committed, or not. 
If you choose 'not', then you must back up the transaction information 
regularly so that you can 'replay' the transactions if you need to 
recover the database.  Or do a full database backup instead.

The concept is common for all database servers that support 
transactions, otherwise they would have no way to roll back a 
transaction if required (or requested).  Oracle has an archive process 
that performs this backup automatically, SQL Server allows you to set up 
a job that performs a log backup at a particular schedule, or you can 
tell it to do the backup as the txlog gets past a threshold % full.  Of 
course this only happens if the DBA knows what he is doing.

Regards,
Steve