Sharepoint backup/ restore

[sonun]

Can anyone post their succesful stories of Sharepoint Backup and Restore including detalied steps undertaken.
Thanks.

 

[stevepa]

We use the backup facility shipped with Portal Server (MSDMback) to create an image of the entire Portal onto a network share. This runs on a scheduled task which kicks off a little batch file at 1am every morning. We then pull this onto tape using Arcserve at 4am.

This suits us as the crawls stop while the backup facility is running, and our Portal only needs to be operational during office hours. However, if yours is a 24 hour Portal and it's important to you that content appears immediately, this may not work for you.

Additionally, you'll need to run the backup utility using the cscript command (cscript MSDMback /r etc...), otherwise it will prompt you to click OK to begin the backup routine, which is obviously no good if you're running it on a task.

The disadvantage of this system is that it is not possible to restore individual files, you have to restore the whole image. It's OK for disaster recovery purposes though. For restoring individual files and folders there is a web part called "undelete" which you can find on the Portal Server web site under Downloads.

Hope this is of help.

 

[johnny99]

We have been testing NetBackup and it seems to do the job fine. The testing was done on a beta, but Veritas says the Featurepack 3 (FP3) that has the SPS client will be out next week (17/2)

The problem I would expect in backup/restore of SPS is what we already have seen in Exchange for many years. Total backup and restore of the datastore is relative fast but trying to make a backup where you can restore selected documents will not be an real option for most shops since that kind of backup would take days due to the very slow backup speeds (and great hardware doesn't help at all)

 

[sonun]

Thanks. That was a helpful start.

Luckily I have no external content sources, but if I did will it back up data from that as well ???

Lets say I do backup the backup of Sharepoint. After a restore will it restore everything to scratch. I mean versioning, categories, et. al. ???

I dont think I will ever need to restore indiidual files, but how do you restore the image ... the steps. Lets say I installed Win2K server and installed Shrepoint portal server afresh....... Then what do I do ???
Also, if it is not against your compnay and personal policy, can you post the contents of the batch file you run.

Thanks.
I really appreciate all your help.

 

[rodlee]

I am running Sharepoint sp2 and have had all sorts of problems trying to restore a complete database using veritas backupexec sharepoint agent 8.6 redirect feature.

1. I can get a Veritas Backupexec redirected restore to work to on an un servicepacked version of portal server (if the sharepoint server is sharepoint service packed the veritas media server will not start the restore) - but as the backup was from a servicepacked sharepoint version the redirected restored data screws the unservicepacked sharepoint target server

2. If I then sharepoint servicepack the target server the sharepoint server works again but the restore has not worked.

3. I have a support call outstanding with Veritas about it.

 

[rodlee]

Never got an answer from Veritas - found the solution myself - which is:

do a fresh un-service packed install of sharepoint on the restore server (this is for a re-directed restore)

create a workspace on the restore server with the same name as the workspace you want restored

do the re-directed restore

after the re-directed restore completes, sharepoint service pack the restore server to the same level as the server which the backup came from.