Hi,
To create a script that backup your sites using stsadm.exe is a very simple task. If you have one virtual website then you just need one line (the actual command line with backup parameter for stsadm). Put it in a batch file and run it as a scheduled task. How to use the stsadm tool is described in The Administrators guide (which I assume you already have!)
Below is how I have done it for backing up all my virtual websites (have over 50 of them) so I just made a simple script.
I created two script files and one text file
Textfile is namned: sites.txt
It contains two columns, one is the address to the site without http

, like this: sharepointsite.com
the 2nd column contains the name I want for the backup file, like this: sharepointsite.dat
First script file I namned: backup.cmd
it contains:
DATE /T > BACKUP.log
FOR /F "TOKENS=1,2" %%i IN (sites.txt) DO CALL BACKUP_SITES.CMD %%i %%j
The 2nd file is namned: BACKUP_SITES.CMD
It contains the following:
@echo off
echo Start %1 >> backup.log
Time /T >> backup.log
call "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\60\BIN\STSADM.exe" -o backup -url "
-filename d:\backup\%2.dat -overwrite
echo Stop %1 >> backup.log
Time /T >> backup.log
There might be smarter ways of doing this, but if you only have one virtual website then you only need one single line.
I wanted to have a timestamp for each virtual website, both when backup started and when backup ended, so I know how long it takes to backup each site.
I just put the file i namned backup.cmd as a scheduled task to be run each night. Then our corporate backupsoftware take filebackup and puts it offsite to another server and onto backup tapes.
As I said there are more sophisticated scripts that can be done, but it just took me a couple of minutes to set this up and it works fine for me. I am however only using this stsadm as a secondary backup. I am using a 3rd party software for item-level backup, which can't be done with the stsadm tool.
Cheers,
Thomas