Problem
Maintenance plans are a great thing, but sometimes the end results are not what you expect. The whole idea behind maintenance plans is to simplify repetitive maintenance tasks without you having to write any additional code. For the most part maintenance plans work without a problem, but every once in awhile things do not go as planned. Two of the biggest uses of maintenance plans are issuing full backups and transaction log backups. What other approaches are there to issue transaction log backups for all databases without using a maintenance plan?

Solution
With the use of T-SQL you can generate your transaction log backups and with the use of cursors you can cursor through all of your databases to back them up one by one. With the use of the DATABASEPROPERTYEX function we can also just address databases that are either in the FULL or BULK_LOGGED recovery model since you can not issue transaction log backups against databases in the SIMPLE recovery mode.

Here is the script that will allow you to backup the transaction log for each database within your instance of SQL Server that is either in the FULL or BULK_LOGGED recovery model.

You will need to change the @path to the appropriate backup directory and each backup file will take on the name of "DBname_YYYDDMM_HHMMSS.TRN".

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
SET @path = 'C:\Backup\'
SELECT @fileDate = CONVERT(VARCHAR(20),GETDATE(),112)
   + '_'
   + REPLACE(CONVERT(VARCHAR(20),GETDATE(),108),':','')
DECLARE db_cursor CURSOR FOR
SELECT name  FROM master.dbo.sysdatabases  WHERE name NOT IN ('master','model','msdb','tempdb')
   AND DATABASEPROPERTYEX(name, 'Recovery') IN ('FULL','BULK_LOGGED')
OPEN db_cursor    FETCH NEXT FROM db_cursor INTO @name
WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0    BEGIN
       SET @fileName = @path + @name + '_' + @fileDate + '.TRN'
       BACKUP LOG @name TO DISK = @fileName

       FETCH NEXT FROM db_cursor INTO @name    END

CLOSE db_cursor    DEALLOCATE db_cursor

In this script we are bypassing the system databases, but these could easily be included as well. You could also change this into a stored procedure and pass in a database name or if left NULL it backups all databases. Any way you choose to use it, this script gives you the starting point to simply backup all of your databases.

Simple script to backup all SQL Server databases

ProblemSometimes things that seem complicated are much easier then you think and this is the power of using T-SQL to take care of repetitive tasks. One of these tasks may be the need to backup all databases on your server.   This is not a big deal if you have a handful of databases, but I have seen several servers where there are 100+ databases on the same instance of SQL Server. You could use Enterprise Manager to backup the databases or even use Maintenance Plans, but using T-SQL is a much simpler and faster approach.
SolutionWith the use of T-SQL you can generate your backup commands and with the use of cursors you can cursor through all of your databases to back them up one by one. This is a very straight forward process and you only need a handful of commands to do this.
Here is the script that will allow you to backup each database within your instance of SQL Server. You will need to change the @path to the appropriate backup directory and each backup file will take on the name of"DBnameYYYDDMM.BAK".

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
SET @path = 'C:\Backup\'
SELECT @fileDate = CONVERT(VARCHAR(20),GETDATE(),112)
DECLARE db_cursor CURSOR FOR
SELECT name FROM master.dbo.sysdatabases WHERE name NOT IN ('master','model','msdb','tempdb')
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

In this script we are bypassing the system databases, but these could easily be included as well. You could also change this into a stored procedure and pass in a database name or if left NULL it backups all databases. Any way you choose to use it, this script gives you the starting point to simply backup all of your databases.