Effective Backup and Restore Strategies for

Your SharePoint Service

Joel Oleson Interviewer: Brent Ozar

Sr. Product Manager, Evangelist
Joel.Oleson@quest.com
Demo: Ghazwan Khairi
www.sharepointjoel.com
Copyright © 2006 Quest Software
Who is Brent Ozar

• SQL Server Expert for Quest Software

• Former DBA, SAN Admin, VMware Admin
• Accidental Sharepoint Admin
• Blog: www.BrentOzar.com
• Twitter: @BrentO
Who is SharePoint Joel?
• 8 year SharePoint Veteran…
• First SharePoint Admin!
• Sr. Technical Product
Manager - SharePoint team
Launch of SharePoint Server
2007
• Top IT SharePoint Blog

Blog: http://www.sharepointjoel.com
Twitter: @joeloleson
Agenda
• Understanding the problem
• Defining requirements
• Discuss backup & recovery
solutions
• Tips & Tricks – Addressing gaps
in backup/restore
• Summary and Q&A

(Compliments to Mike Watson for Deck minus lolcats)

Why is SharePoint Protection Difficult?

THE PROBLEM
SharePoint and IKEA CAT have something in common…
LOLCATS.COM
Why SharePoint Data Protection is Difficult
 SharePoint is confusing
 Multiple servers with different roles
 Different databases
 Customizations
 Configurations
 Logical architecture doesn‟t translate into physical
components
 Why SharePoint Data Protection is Difficult
• Competing goals require different solutions:
– Item level recovery
– Disaster Recovery
– High Availability
• Many solutions available. Not obvious what to use:
– SharePoint Native Backup
– SharePoint Designer
– Recycle Bin
– SQL backup
– DPM
– Third-party solutions
What in Your SharePoint Environment Needs
Protection?
• Do you need to protect all of your farms, servers, services,
customizations, and configurations?
Backup Pie

10

10

Content
Configuration
Customization

80
SharePoint Components

• Content Database(s)
Content (SQL • SSP Databases
Server Databases) • Configuration Database **
• Master Pages, Page Layouts, CSS, etc – Typically Stored in Content
Database
Customizations • Web Parts, Site/List Definitions, Custom Features (Site Columns,
Content Types, Workflows, etc.)
• 3rd Party Solutions, Binaries, Registry Keys, etc.
• Changes to any files in “12 Hive” (i.e. XML files)

•IIS Configurations (Application Pool, IIS Compression, Host Headers, SSL

Certificates, etc.)

Configurations •MOSS 2007 Configuration Settings

•Web Application Names & Databases
•Crawler Impact Rules

• Operating System Files (Windows Server)

• MOSS 2007 Binaries
Binary Files • Service Packs/Hotfixes
• Language Packs
Policy Driven Backup and Recovery

THE PLAN
Creating a Backup/Recovery Solution

Difficult but not impossible!

• What needs to be protected from what scenarios?

• How likely are those scenarios?
• How much data loss can be tolerated?
• How quickly must items/environment be
restored?
• Test and price potential solutions.
• Mitigate issues.
• Choose and communicate solution.
 What needs to be
protected?

Choose and From what

communicate plan. scenarios?

How much data loss

Mitigate issues.
can be tolerated?

How quickly must

Test and price
items/environment
potential solutions.
be restored?
 Protected From What Scenarios?

Scenario Likelihood

End user error 100%

Application/platform errors 100%

Hardware failures 100%

Infrastructure issues 10%

Facilities failures 1%

Regional disasters .09%

How SLA Affects Your Recovery Plan

Item Level
Recovery

High Disaster
Availability Recovery
The No Brainer…

• Recycle Bin with 2 levels of recovery

– End-user targeted with access from the site itself
– Site Administrator (at the Site Collection) accessible at
the second level
• Turned on by default through Central Admin
• Configured at the Web Application Level
 RTO/RPO – Very Important!

How much data loss can be

tolerated? As
RTO/RPO
How quickly must Decrease
data/environment be restored?

– RTO/RPO affect:
– The technologies you choose
– The strategies you deploy
– The simplicity/complexity of your
solution
Complexity & Cost
– The location of your backups and
environments Increase
How the "Nines" Relate to Yearly Downtime

87 hours
99%

9 hours
99.9%

< 1 hour
99.99%

< 5 minutes
99.999%
Test & Price Potential Solutions

BACKUP/RECOVERY
SOLUTIONS AND STRATEGIES
Protecting Content

• For Content it‟s all about the Content

Database!
Databases

Sites

Webs

Lists & Libraries

Documents,
List items, &
Pages
Content Database Protection

• Simple Problem – Difficult Solution

• Endless options:
– SharePoint native backup
– SQL Native backup
• With compression?
• Simple or Full recovery model?
• Full, Differential, Incremental backups?
• Transaction log backups?
• What to store and how long?
– SQL log shipping, mirroring, replication?
– DPM?
– Third-Party backup and replication tools?
Content Database Recovery
• Even more difficult!
• SQL database recovery workflow
– Confirm item
– Confirm location
– Track down database backup timeline
– Recover backups (online or offline (tape))
– Position backups (same server/farm, recovery farm)
– Confirm backups are valid
– Restore backups
– Attach backups to SharePoint
– Confirm item is available
– Retrieve item and position for end user
• Recover to original farm
• Recover to a restore farm
• Extract data from SQL.
• Bring DR database online.
SharePoint Native Backup/Restore

“I‟m planning on using SharePoint‟s Native Backup

Restore, are there any considerations I should know?

SharePoint Native Backup/Restore provides

an out of the box base solution
SharePoint‟s Native Backup/Restore is only
recommended for Small to Medium Sized
Deployments… 
STSADM for Operations and Scripting

• Tool for the right job…

• To create a farm backup:
– Use stsadm –o backup -directory
• To migrate a site collection:
– Use stsadm –o backup http://server/site (no directory)
• To migrate a site:
– Use stsadm –o export/import for sites
• To migrate a list:
– Access or Excel or Third party tool
• (watch creator/created date)
Characteristics of a Small to Medium-Size
Deployment (Data Perspective)

Site Collections No Larger than 12-15 GB*

Content Databases No Larger than 100 GB*
Deployed in up to three tiers, on no more than
five servers (one to three front-end Web
servers, one application server, and one
computer or cluster running Microsoft SQL
Server.)*

*Source: Whitepaper “Data protection and recovery for

Office SharePoint Server in small to medium
deployments”
SharePoint 2007 Native Backup & Restore

• Out of the Box User Interface via Central

Administration
• Command line access via STSADM tool
• „Hooks up‟ SharePoint Databases and Search
index on Restore
• Supports Full and Differential Backups*
• Easy to Use
• Backup/Restore at Farm or Web Application
Level
• The only way native way to backup/restore the
Search index
 SharePoint 2007 Native Backup/Restore
How it works

Farm
Central
Admin UI Config DB File
or Console Server

Content DB Content DB

Search
SSP DB Index

Full Backup

Differential

SQL Backup/Restore
Microsoft Confidential
SharePoint 2007 Native Backup/Restore

What‟s Missing???
• Does not Provide Scheduling Functionality in
SharePoint (Use Windows Task Scheduler)
• Does not Backup any Configurations/Customizations
to any files in the “12 Hive” or Web.config files
• Does not Backup IIS Settings/Configurations
• Does not Backup Alternate Access Mappings (AAM)
• Cannot Backup Directly to Tape (only to UNC)
SQL-Only Backup/Restore

“My SQL servers are managed by a separate organization or data

center from my SharePoint installations…”
“I prefer SQL Server Backups for Performance and Availability…”

• Advantages & Benefits:

– Existing SQL Server disaster recovery strategies can
be re-used
– Can provider substantially faster Backup/Restore than
MOSS 2007‟s Native Backup/Restore
– Can leverage 3rd party tools such as LiteSpeed for
SQL Server to improve Backup/Restore Performance
– Provides a full-fidelity data backup
SQL-Only Backup/Restore

• Considerations & Disadvantages:

– Does not Backup any WFE Configurations or Solutions
– Requires Admin to Manually Reattach Content Databases to
the Web applications After a Recovery
– Manually Backup / Restore all customizations on WFE Servers
(.Net Assemblies, Features, IIS Metabase, etc. – batch file can
help automate this process)
– No need to Backup Search Database (As it can‟t be
synchronized with Search Index)
– Recommend Backup/Restore of SSP separately via SharePoint
Native Backup & Restore
 Why Backup/Restore is Not Highly Available or
DR
• Simply not fast enough
– Rate of restore *
content size = RTO
Example:
100MB/sec * 5TB > 14
hours
• Complicated recovery
procedure
• Prone to error
• Some important
configurations will likely
be lost.
Failover SQL Mirroring 2 Farms
Mirroring Within Farm

< 1ms
latency
>LAN
speed
Third Party Solutions

– There are three main categories:

• Storage Solutions – Replication of content on
disk to another storage set or system.
• Backup/Restore – Integrate with SQL, file
system, or VSS to provide backup/restore
functionality.
• Caching/Synchronization – Use a variety of
methods to cache content to a remote store or
replicate content across sites/farms.
Quick Note on the Infrastructure Update

• Infrastructure update includes some major

HA/DR improvements
– Overall improvement in stability/perf (better stored
procs)
– Faster patching reduces downtime.
– VSS Writer enhancements improve reliability.
– Full crawls no longer necessary after DB attach:
• Content DB‟s do not get assigned new GUID‟s !!!!
• Change log remains intact.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953750
 SharePoint Backup Strategy Summary

• Ok for small environments

Out of the Box
• A must for most Index requirements

Native SQL • OK for content only/Not ok for Search/Index

• Tried and True DR strategy, but don‟t forget the

SQL Log Shipping
backup part

• Complex, but provides HA and Quicker Disaster

SQL Mirroring
Recovery Strategy

Third Party Backup –Quest • They each have their own issues (pros and cons)
Litespeed, Tivoli, Commvault,
AvePoint, DPM, etc.. • Don‟t forget to backup the BOX!
Mitigating problems with backup/restore solutions

TIPS AND TRICKS

Prevent Database Restores

• Use granular protection solutions instead.

– Recycle bin
– List item versioning
– Publishing (page versioning)
– Quick Recovery Tool (like Quest)
• Gaps exist.
– No site or web recycle bin. Use the MSIT Site
Delete capture tool or LCM tool
http://www.codeplex.com/governance/
– No centralized control over item and page
versioning
Use Solutions!

• Roll up customizations as solution

packages
– Roll up as many customizations into a single
package as possible.
– Solutions provide automatic deployment,
simplified management, upgrade, and HA/DR
efficiencies.
– Store solutions offsite (and on standby farm) with
installation instructions.
– Build roll up packages on a regular basis.
Quest Solutions for SharePoint

Quest SQL Server Solutions Site Administrator for SharePoint

Maximize SQL Server performance
Understand, manage and secure your
while simplifying tasks and providing SharePoint environment
visibility and control

Quest Web Parts

Enable rapid development
Recovery Manager for SharePoint
of SharePoint applications
Granular SharePoint recovery for
enterprise-level needs

Migration Manager for SharePoint Public Folder Migrator for SharePoint

SharePoint 2003 to 2007 Migration Efficient Exchange Public Folders to SharePoint Migration
File Migrator for SharePoint Notes Migrator for SharePoint
File shares to SharePoint Migration Reliable Notes application content migration to SharePoint
44
Provides granular and scalable recovery of anything in the backup
of your SharePoint 2003 and 2007 content database
DBAs as SharePoint Admins

• SharePoint is based on and its core functionality is derived

from… SQL Server
• 60% of organizations have dedicated SharePoint admins (and
growing)
• Permissions
• Site management
• Document recovery
• But, there needs to be a SQL Server DBA involved – and this is
not always the case
• Performance optimization
• Backup
• Restore
• Mirroring / Clustering
• Storage management
Quest SQL Server Solutions

Change Backup & Performance

Administration
Management Recovery Management
• Toad for SQL • Change Director • LiteSpeed for • Capacity
Server for SQL Server SQL Server Manager for
• Discovery SQL Server
Wizard for SQL • Spotlight on
Server SQL Server
(freeware) Enterprise

• Quest SQL Server Products

http://www.quest.com/sql-server
Summary

• SharePoint Backup/Recovery is tricky, but

not impossible.
• Traditional backup/restore is not HA or DR.
• Different requirements sometimes require
different solutions.
• Most solutions have issues. Look around for
innovative fixes.
• No one solutions meets all needs. Combine
solutions when necessary.
SharePointForAll.com

• Aggregation of Quest SharePoint Team Feeds

• Unique IT Content
– Migration
– Disaster Recovery/Backup
• Product Update Drilldown and Webcast
Announcements
• Beta access to new SharePoint tools and
products!
• Quest SharePoint tools discussion forums

• Official Launch Feb 23!

SQL Resources

• Visit our SQL Server technical resource blog at:

www.sqlserverpedia.com
Feel free to send your SQL Server related technical questions to:
ask@sqlserverpedia.com

• Visit our dedicated SQL Server community

site at: http://sqlserver.quest.com

• Check out our “Backstage” area with all of our collateral and
upcoming events including our „Pain of the Week‟ webcasts:
• www.quest.com/backstage
• www.quest.com/backstage/pow.aspx
Questions?
• More information about all of Quest‟s SharePoint solutions,
including Recovery Manager for SharePoint, is available at:
www.quest.com/sharepointmaster
 Thank you for attending!

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