I'm setting up some SQL 2012 Servers and plan to use Availability Groups. I use maintenance plans to perform my backup tasks. I have a question about full vs copy-only backups.
I'd like to use my secondary replicas to perform my db backups, and I know I need to use Copy-Only when doing this. I also plan to make Transaction log backups several times during the day to provide even more protection in the event of a freak accident.
My questions are:
1) Since I'm pretty much never doing a full backup besides the very first time when I setup the Availability group, does this cause any problems long term or anything I should be aware of?
2) In the event of an issue that requires me to restore from backup, can I still use my Copy only as my base and then restore the trans log backups on top of that?
3) Will my transaction log backups continue to grow forever, or does each trans log backup truncate the existing log?
4) Any other questions I should be asking that I'm not?
Thanks,
Sean Greenbaum