Chapter 14: Backup and Restore of SharePoint Products and Technologies

Overview

The new versions of Windows SharePoint Services and SharePoint Server include improved tools for backing up and restoring content. Most notably, they give you the ability to back up and restore the entire farm from the command line. This allows for the automated scripting and scheduling in Windows Server 2003 for enterprise-level SharePoint Products backups. Yet, to complete successfully a backup of your SharePoint Products Web applications and associated content, you are still required to use additional tools, such as the Internet Information Services (IIS) configuration backup and restore tool. The backup and restore features of SharePoint Products does both content recovery and disaster recovery as follows:

• Content recovery

  • Document Versioning

  • Recycle Bin

  • Stsadm.exe -o [import | export] (site migration tool)

• Disaster recovery

  • Central Administration Graphical User Interface (GUI) Backup And Restore

  • Stsadm.exe -o [backup | restore] (site collection backup and restore)

  • Stsadm.exe -o [backup | restore] -directory (catastrophic backup and restore)

Many organizations require a combination of these backup methods to ensure a fully restored and functional server farm in the event of a disaster. The following items must be backed up and are discussed within this chapter:

• Complete operating system backups of all servers in the farm

• Individual IIS Metabase backups

• All InetPub folders when modifying IIS directories, as is the case with the Web.config file

• Indexes and associated Shared Services Provider Search database

• Web application configuration not stored in the configuration database (SSL certificates, assigned IP addresses, multiple host headers)