4. Backup and Restore
Microsoft has made
improvements in the ways SharePoint 2010 administrators can perform farm
level backups as well as more granular backups of SharePoint
information. SharePoint 2010 introduces the ability to perform site
collection, site, library, and list backups, which could only be done
using STSADM in previous versions of SharePoint.
4.1. Farm Backup and Restore
Similar to the Backup And Restore tools provided with SharePoint Server 2007, you can use Central
Administration to perform both backups and restores. When you perform a
backup, you can choose to store it on either a local or a network
drive. However, if you grow beyond one server, your backups must be
available to your SharePoint servers and your SQL servers, which means
that you must use a network drive to perform restores on your servers.
Note:
Best Practices
Although it is not possible to perform a backup directly to an external
tape device, when the backup is complete, you can move the backup files
to a tape or other external device as a another step in the backup
operation. It is a best practice to create a copy of the backup files
using this technique whenever possible, because it adds a layer of
protection by allowing you to store backups offsite.
To access the Backup
And Restore utility, open a browser and go to the SharePoint Central
Administration website, then click the Backup And Restore functional
category. The backup and restore utilities are divided into two
sections: Farm Backup and Restore And Granular Backup.
From the Farm Backup And Restore section, you can
Start a new backup job
Configure backup settings
Check the backup job history
Check the status of a currently running backup or restore job
From the Granular Backup section, you can
Backups can also be performed using Windows PowerShell or STSADM scripts, providing you the option of scheduling your backups.
4.1.1. Perform a Backup
After you click the Perform A Backup option under Farm Backup And Restore, a page similar the one shown in Figure 42
will be displayed, where you can choose what component you want to back
up. You can back up the entire farm, just the farm configuration
information, service applications, Web applications, or specific content
databases. Similar to previous versions of the backup utility in
SharePoint, you can select the entire farm or a single component to back
up, but you cannot choose multiple components when performing a backup
except to perform an entire farm backup.
After specifying what components you want to back up, you can click the Next button to display the page shown in Figure 43, where you can configure the options for the backup.
Use this page to specify the type of backup, the contents of the
backup, and the location of the backup. If you decide you want to change
which components will be backed up, you can click the Previous button
located on the bottom of the page or select the appropriate option from
the drop-down menu in the Backup Component section of the page to return
to the previous page (shown in Figure 42).
The backup utility in Central Administration allows you to back up SharePoint Server at various levels, from a full SharePoint farm to a single list or library.
However, the backup utility has some limitations that you should note. For example, it has the following drawbacks.
It does not allow backups to be scheduled.
It does not allow backups directly to tape.
It does not allow more than one SharePoint component to be backed up at the same time unless you back up the entire farm.
4.1.2. Restore From a Backup
The Backup And Restore utility in Central
Administration is also used to restore the backups of your SharePoint
information, regardless of what tool you used to perform the backup. For
example, if you run a Windows PowerShell script to perform your backups
at regularly schedule intervals, you can restore one of those backups
using this interface. You will need to know the name and location of the
backup that you are restoring. You can enter the location of the backup
file in the Backup Directory Location text box on the page shown in Figure 44.
After specifying the backup location, you will see a list of the
available backups in that directory. You can choose the backup that you
want to restore and then click the Restore button to perform the
restore.
4.1.3. Configure Backup Settings
The Configure Backup Settings page is used to define how the backup
and restore operations will perform by default. If your backups run
during evening hours, you can specify that additional threads be used
during the backups, which should decrease the amount of time it takes to
perform the backup operation. You can specify the number of threads for
a restore operation. The number of threads can be set from 1 to 10; the
default is 3.
If you have a default
directory where all of your backups are stored, and you want this
directory to be populated as the directory of choice when performing
backups, you can set the default directory in the Backup File Location
section of the Default Backup And Restore Settings page, as shown in Figure 45. This directory will also be populated automatically when you perform a restore operation using Central Administration.
4.1.4. View Backup and Restore History
The options on the Backup
And Restore History page allow you to view backup jobs that have
already been performed that are located in the directory specified in
the Backup Directory Location as shown in Figure 46.
On this page, you can select a single backup to restore and then click
the Begin Restore Process link to bring you to the second page of the
Restore From Backup interface.
4.1.5. Check Backup and Restore Job Status
During a backup or restore
operation, you can view its progress by clicking the Backup And Restore
Job Status link to display information about the operation, as shown in Figure 47. This page automatically refreshes, or you can click the Refresh button to refresh it to provide current status information.
