SQLBackupAndFTP runs database backups automatically and most of the users schedule it via windows interface/GUI. But you can also start a backup job manually via a command-line interface. One of the examples, when you may need it, is a complex scheduling scenario when the options provided in the program interface are not enough. In this case you may build more complicated schedule with Windows Schedule.

Hopefully starting from v11.1.4 we made it possible to run your backups jobs from a command line. Here is the syntax:

SqlBak.Job.Cli.exe -runJob -jobName "<job-name>" -backupType "<backup-type>"

• <job-name> is the name of a job you want to run (as it shown in the left pane of SqlBackupAndFtp’s window)
• <backup-type> specifies what kind of backup you need to make this time, it can be one of the following values:
  • Full – full backup
  • FullCopy – full copy-only backup
  • Diff – differential backup
  • TranLog – transaction log backup
  • TranLogCopy – transaction log copy-only backup

That’s it. And, by the way, if you run a job from a command line you will still be able to see it is executing in the GUI window as well.

In the following blog post, you can find more Command-Line arguments to manage an installation.