Scheduling the Backup Process

For scheduled backup procedures you need to run STSADM, since the backup procedure in SharePoints Central Administration tool cannot be scheduled. For example, say that you want to schedule a backup job of the complete SharePoint farm at 04:00 am every day, saving these files to the location \\srv2\bkup, and without listing any details. The following Try It Out shows how to configure that.

Try It Out Schedule Backup Procedures with STSADM

1. Log on to the SharePoint server as the administrator.

2. Open Windows Scheduler: Starts All Programs Accessories System Tools Scheduled Tasks, then enter these settings:

   1. Click File New Scheduled Task.

   2. Enter a name for this task, for example, MOSS Backup.

   3. Double-click on this new task to open and configure it (see Figure 14-2).

      
      Figure 14-2

   4. Run: stsadm –o backup directory \\srv2\bkup –backupmethod full –quiet.

   5. Start In: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\bin.

   6. Switch to the Schedule tab, then enter 04.00 am as the daily start time.

   7. Click OK to save and close the scheduled task.

   8. Test this scheduled task: Right-click on the Moss Backup task, and select Run. Then wait for a short period, and then look in the \\srv2\bkup folder to see if there is a newly created folder starting with the letters "SPBR;" if so, the scheduled task works fine.

Improtent 

This backup process will also truncate the transaction log files in MS SQL Server, which was not the case in SharePoint 2003. This will eliminate the risk of filling the disk on the SQL server with transaction log files.