Scenario:
Database A ~(250GB) is read only
A full backup is taken and transferred elsewhere, this becomes Database B
Database B is updated with ~10GB of change.
I want to be able to transfer the transactions from B back to database A.
Database B is then removed to make way for the same process to happen again (There are many databases like A)
The whole process repeats once a day.
Problem:-
Database A is not in recovery mode, so I can't simply take a log backup from B and apply it to A.
I could take a full backup of B and move it back, but want to avoid that if possible due to the time it takes. (I have many other databases just like A which need to follow the same process, and I want to get on with the next one as quickly as possible).
I could restore the original full backup of A along side, to make a database C. I can then restore a transaction log backup from B into C. This seems very inefficient though, given A and C are in data terms identical.
Is there a way around this I'm missing!?
Not wild on the complexity of using replication in this process, but it might be one way. A problem I have is I want control of whether I make the update back to A depending on the outcome of B. There can also be multiple Bs created and only one will be chosen to update A.
Bit of a puzzle this one.