Backup Question

[cmajewski]

I have looked all over the Microsoft site and they don't give you much in the way of a 'best practices' guide to backup the MSDE DB and the SharePoint Sites. What are the best ways to do this? I am running only SharePoint Services 2.0/Server 2003 with MSDE...any ideas or sites out there that address this?

 

[Evilbart]

use stsadm.exe

the help file describes this very well

use a batch file (or a vbscript wrapper) for this task and schedule it to run every day (or hour ;-) depending on your SLA's to the users.

//Bart

 

[cmajewski]

Thanks again, I'll check this out and let you know how it goes.....

 

[Thomas2000]

I have done some backups and restores using the stsadm.exe tool sure it works, but you can only backup top-level sites and restore top-level sites, which is not very good. I found a good product called Doc Ave 2.5 that enables you to do item level backup which is very nice..if you accident for example delete a document library you can in a few seconds restore it. So check out

http://www.avepoint.com

it is a really nice product for backup&restore and it works a lot better than the backup features the stsadm.exe tool provides.

Cheers,
Thomas Sandberg

 

[cmajewski]

Damn! $1500 for 1 server and 50 sites...I don't think I could justify that! It really looks like a great product, but that pricing is outrageous! I'll try the stsadmin tool...which I haven't used yet. Is it worth even downloading the trial? Does it do enough for a potential showing for my purchasing dept.?

Thomas, (or anybody for that matter) since you used the stsadm tool, you state it only backs up "top-level" sites. So if my top level site (or root site) is "

http://servername/default.aspx"

and all of the user's sites are "

http://servername/username",

will it still backup the users sites?

Thanks much!

Charles

 

[cmajewski]

Well, maybe I will have to buy that application afterall....

When I run stsadm.exe -o backup -url

http://servername/site

-filename

I receive the follwing error:
"The specified url is not a top-level Web site. The back and restore ops only work for top-level Web sites...

 

[cmajewski]

OK went to MS Support and finally got the syntax correct you don't type in 'servername/site' like the stsadm help file tells you, you type in just the servername!

stsadm.exe -o backup -url

http://servername

-filename e:\backup\websites\backup.dat

It then ran successfully and now I have a 'backup.dat' file at that path...

Question: Does that file now contain all the 'sites'? For example, will the http;//servername/cmajewski (site) be in that .dat file along with all the other users sites...? I am too scared to restore it over my existing config to find out.

Thanks again

 

[cmajewski]

Is EvilBart the only SPS Master in here?

 

[Evilbart]

i hope my memory is informing me right:
stsadm backups everything from the tld down to the deepest tree

you can use smigrate.exe to backup individual subsites

to do some testing you could create a new virtual server and extend it. then you can testdrive your restore to this virtual server.
one issue though:
Sites with duplicate names cannot not be restored.

This could be a problem in the following situation. If you have two virtual servers, with separate content databases for each virtual server that are only listed by relative paths in the configuration database, the site names may conflict. For example, if the configuration database lists the site names without the

http://server_name

prefix, you could have several sites that use the same path. For example,

http://server_1/sites/site1

and

http://server_2/sites/site1

could both be listed in the configuration database as /sites/site1 even though they are on separate virtual servers. In this case, the sites will not be restored correctly, and you will see an error in the restore log file.

or more easy: restore to a temp machine (if you might have one in a closet somewhere)

hope this helps building some confidence.

my comments on AVEPOINT: it's great software but in some cases the ROI cannot be justified. Therefore i use my own scripts using stsadm and smigrate to perform backups and restores. In some cases that's more then enough. When you need more you pay more and AVEPOINT is a fine solution. New solution providers will come with similar products. I'm looking out for them.....

//Bart

 

[cmajewski]

Thanks much Evilbart. I'll start searching for some scripts (know where I can find some good examples?), as my Purchasing Dept. shot down AVEPOINT.

 

[edminformatica]

I have a problem with the backup and the restore functions of SharePoint Services.
I used the stsadm to make the backup, but when I restore it I receive the following message: "The web site that is referenced here is not in the configuration database".

Can someone help me please????

 

[Thomas2000]

Hi,

Yes I agree that the Avepoint pricing is outrageous and I hope the Microsoft or one of the large backup vendors will come with a good backupsolution for WSS and SPS.

You can ofcourse do most things with the stsadm tool, I had a real scenario last week where a user deleted a document library in a subsite, I restored the whole site (from root site and down) to another server with a new content database and then migrate data from it back to the orginal site. It is a bit tricky and takes some time the first time you do it. But as Bart said that other solution providers will come with similar products and then I guess the pricing will be a lot different.

 

[cmajewski]

Thanks, so much.. From what 'edminformatica' says, I will start testing my backups right away to at least make sure what I have been doing with stsadmin is creating a viable backup.

So, I'll need another W2K3 machine, running SPS 2.0 correct?
At that point I just point the backup.dat file when restoring, and that's pretty much it???

Charles

P.S. Evilbart, any idea on where I can find some decent examples of some backup scripts for stsadmin? I have been looking but so far have come empty.

 

[Evilbart]

as soon is i find some time to "straighten a scenario" i will publish my scripts somewhere public.

until then read and read again the "Backup and Migration chapter" from the administrators guide

To download the Windows SharePoint Services Administrator's Guide, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...f6-8224-4b19-a6a4-3e33fa13d230&displaylang=en

 

[Thomas2000]

When it comes to restoring your sites I would recommend that you chose to restore to a different machine. You can ofcourse put it on the same machine, either overwrite the original site(s)(not recommended!) or create a new virtual server on the same machine, with a new content database and then restore your site(s) to it. I did some testing on my labenvironment machine and it is very easy to mess up the "original" sites and mess up the content database.

This is the steps I followed when I did my restore
1. Created a new virtual server
2. Extended the virtual server and created a new content database and actually created a top-level site, then I deleted that one to be able to restore the sites from backup to that location.
3. Used the stsadm tool and restored the site(s) from my backupfile.

Good luck with your testing Charles!

Cheers,
Thomas

 

[cmajewski]

Much thanks to both of you...I am on it. Reading and rereading the documentation. I'll start building another machine for backup testing purposes...

Thanks again,

And if I become some kind of expert like you and Evilbart I will let you know...(ha, ha).

Charles

 

[cmajewski]

HEY THOMAS2000, is it worth even installing the trial version of Avepoint? Will it back and restore anything?

 

[Thomas2000]

Charles,

Yes it will backup and restore. It is a 30 day trial, although I think it has a limitiation of 200 items when backing up with the trial version and not sure on how many sites it can backup with the trial.

You can find more information about it on the Avepoint webpage.

Regards,
Thomas

 

[edminformatica]

Hi,
I am trying to simulate a Disaster Recovery process, but I keep on having problems with restoring the site created with Windows SharePoint Services.

These are the steps I followed:

1) I did the Content Database backup with Enterprise Manager of SQL Server;
2) I did the site backup with the STSADM utility;
3) With IIS I created, on a new server with the exact same characteristics and machine’s name of the first one, a new website named as the previous one (i.e.: IntranetWWS, that is on the 8500 port, reachable by typing

http://servername:8500);

4) I created a new site from the SharePoint Services Administration site, connecting it to the website created on IIS. The new site has the exact same settings of the first one (IIS App pool, database name, user, etc.);
5) I stopped the new site in IIS;
6) I restored the content database with Enterprise Manager;
7) I restarted the site on IIS;
8) I restored the site using the STSADM utility with the overwrite feature.

Awfully the last operation doesn’t work. Consequently I receive the following message: "The web site address

http://servername:8500

is already in use."

I have also tried to stop the IIS services and repeat the restore operation, but I still continue to get the same error.

Has anybody else ever gotten the same error I am telling you about? Could you please suggest me a way to solve this problem?

Thank you a lot.

 

[Thomas2000]

Hello "edmin"

I have done a similar thing as you. I also got the problem you describe. What I did was to create a new website in IIS, and then went into SharePoint Cent. Admin and extended the virtual server and connected it to the database, then SharePoint will create a site, I deleted that site and I was then able to do a restore to the "new" location.

Regards,
Thomas