what to backup

[richw1234]

Hi there,

I have a v3 of sharepoint,web application is on one server and the SQL is on a remote server. I am really confused as to what I should be backing up. I mainly use Arcserve and have the relevant client installed but I also run a stsadm script once a week prior the full backup from Arcserve.

I spoke to CA support and they told me I should be filtering out the sharepoint directories on the server because the agent will back up the necesary files, I am having to go with this because I cannot find documentation to say otherwise. I am also ignoring the SQL databases on the remote machine for the same reason. Unfortunately I am not in a position to run through a disater recovery.

Can anyone suggest what is required to get a full backup of sharepoint, not necessary with CA software but in general?

 

[cmv131]

All of SharePoint is stored in your SQL database. The STSADM backup you run pulls the data out of SQL and dumps it to file.

If all you are doing is backing up your SP server, you are only getting a true backup once a week (when your STSADM runs). On the SP server itself, you have your templates and DLLS and all that, but the data and site hierarchy is stored in SQL

What you should do is a farm level backup once a week (which you are) and a nightly backup of all the SQL databasess (SharePoint_Config, WSS_Content, etc...). We also run a nightly backup via STSADM of all the individual site collections. This will allow us to restore only 1 site if need be and not the whole farm.

Veritas has a SharePoint a module within its backup software that will let you restore down to the document level which we will be adobting in the near future. Does ARCserve have a SharePoint Agent? If so, it probably has a similar feature set

 

[cmv131]

Also, forgot the 1 place on the server where you would want to backup would be the "12 hive" c:\program files\common files\microsoft share\ web server extensions\12\

This is where all of your templates and images etc are stored

 

[richw1234]

Thanks for the information, Arcserve does have an agent but it does the same as the stsadm util pretty much, no file level restore....yet.

It's looking like I do not need the sharepoint agent as I could just use the stsadm util and an SQL agent to do the databases on a nightly basis. I will also do a file level backup of the sharepoint server for DR recovery purposes.

I know it sounds a bit of an overkill but better to be safe than sorry, do you think this would do the trick?

 

[cmv131]

That pretty much what we are doing right now. We backup all our sites to disk every night via STSADM and do a file level backup of the app server. We also run a SQL backup of all the SP databases. You are covering all your bases at that point, and like you said - better to be safe than sorry.