Native backup of all databases in a Microsoft SQL database server

November 2019

Sometimes it is really conveinient to backup all the databases in MS SQL in one go. The following script does just that:

DECLARE @name VARCHAR(50) -- database name  
DECLARE @path VARCHAR(256) -- path for backup files  
DECLARE @fileName VARCHAR(256) -- filename for backup  
DECLARE @fileDate VARCHAR(20) -- used for file name
 
-- specify database backup directory
SET @path = '/tmp/data/backups/'  
 
-- specify filename format
-- SELECT @fileDate = CONVERT(VARCHAR(20),GETDATE(),112) 
SELECT @fileDate = CONVERT(VARCHAR(20),GETDATE(),112) + '-' + REPLACE(CONVERT(VARCHAR(20),GETDATE(),108),':','')

DECLARE db_cursor CURSOR READ_ONLY FOR  
SELECT name 
FROM master.sys.databases 
WHERE name NOT IN ('master','model','msdb','tempdb')  -- exclude these databases
AND state = 0 -- database is online
AND is_in_standby = 0 -- database is not read only for log shipping
 
OPEN db_cursor   
FETCH NEXT FROM db_cursor INTO @name   
 
WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0   
BEGIN   
   SET @fileName = @path + @name + '_' + @fileDate + '.BAK'  
   BACKUP DATABASE @name TO DISK = @fileName  
 
   FETCH NEXT FROM db_cursor INTO @name   
END   

 
CLOSE db_cursor   
DEALLOCATE db_cursor

Reference:

• Base article idea: https://www.mssqltips.com/sqlservertip/1070/simple-script-to-backup-all-sql-server-databases/