To the SharePoint : Backup

Article updates for the April Cumulative Update

Margo Crandall — Thu, 21 May 2009 10:44:00 GMT

If you subscribe to our newly-published RSS feeds for Windows SharePoint Services and Office SharePoint Server, you may have noticed a wave of topics that we updated for the April Cumulative Update.

We updated topics because the Windows SharePoint Services portion of the Cumulative Update fixes a pain point (possible data corruption and definite size limitation) in deleting, merging, and splitting content databases. From the Cumulative Update description, here's the problem, and how you can avoid it:

"If a site collection is very large, an attempt to delete the site collection from a Web application fails. This causes the stsadm -o mergecontentdbs command to fail when you try to move site collections from one content database to another. This issue is resolved by adding an optional -gradualdelete parameter to the stsadm -o deletesite command. If this parameter is present, SharePoint marks the site collection as deleted to prevent further access while a SharePoint Timer job gradually deletes the data in the site collection. After you install the hotfix package that this article describes, the stsadm -o mergecontentdbs command uses this gradual delete functionality by default."

Now that product team added the Site Collection: Delete timer job to run in the background and gradually delete anything marked as deleted, you can delete and move large site collections the way that you always wanted to!

Note: Although the Stsadm mergecontentdbs operation uses the gradual delete functionality by default after you install the hotfix, it's not the default for the Stsadm deletesite operation, so you'll need to remember specify the -gradualdelete parameter.

Here's the list of the topics that we changed as a result of the update:

Windows SharePoint Services topics	Office SharePoint Server topics
Delete a site collection (Windows SharePoint Services)	Delete a site collection (Office SharePoint Server)
Merge content databases (Windows SharePoint Services 3.0)	Merge content databases (Office SharePoint Server 2007)
Move site collections to a new database (split a content database) (Windows SharePoint Services	Move site collections to a new database (split a content database) (Office SharePoint Server 200
Back up and restore site collections by using built-in tools (Windows SharePoint Services 3.0)	Back up and restore site collections by using built-in tools (Office SharePoint Server 2007)
SharePoint Timer job reference (Office SharePoint Server)	SharePoint Timer job reference (Office SharePoint Server)
Job-gradual-site-deletion- Stsadm property (Windows SharePoint Services)	Job-gradual-site-deletion- Stsadm property (Office SharePoint Server)
Deletesite: Stsadm operation (Windows SharePoint Services)	Deletesite: Stsadm operation (Office SharePoint Server)

Finally Finally Finished: The Move All Databases Procedure

oscarblog — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 22:04:00 GMT

UPDATE! We are now able to update TechNet articles! The Move All Databases articles have been updated with the new content (more than once!), and the download version of the article has been pulled down. Thanks for your patience

Folks that have tried to move their SharePoint databases from one server to another may have noticed the “Preliminary Content” note at the top of the Move All Databases (Office SharePoint Server 2007) topic in TechNet. The procedures that were posted in that topic contained some errors and didn’t explain the differences between moving to a server with a different name and moving to a server with the same name (one requires restoring the Search Shared Services Provider, the other doesn’t).

The final Move All Databases procedure topic is a big improvement over the old one, and includes two different procedures that are intended to cover the most common database movement scenarios.

If you are moving your databases to a new database server with a new name, we recommend the procedure Move all databases to a different database server.
If you are moving your databases to a database server that has the same name as the old one, we recommend the procedure Move all databases to a database server with the same name.
If you are moving your databases to a server that is running upgraded versions of Microsoft Windows Server or Microsoft SQL Server software, we recommend the procedure Move all databases to a database server with the same name.

The two new procedures sound similar, but are very different in practice. Be sure to review both of them to determine which one suits your particular need. Remember that these procedures are for moving all SharePoint databases as opposed to other procedures that may be used for moving individual databases.

SharePoint and Data Protection Manager -- very cool together!

Margo Crandall — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 20:45:00 GMT

Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 (DPM) is a Microsoft backup and recovery tool that can be used to protect and recover SharePoint data.

Why is DPM exciting? It requires very little processing on the server because writes are done frequently at the data block level. Data block-level updates are much less resource intensive than either SharePoint or SQL Server full or partial backups.As a result, you can run DPM on a production server during standard business hours!

DPM provides a SharePoint backup that you can use to recover the configuration database, content databases, and Shared Services Provider databases. With a bit of additional scripting, you can use DPM to protect Search as well.

With other DPM tools (file system backup and the System Recovery Tool), you can also use DPM to provide protection for front-end Web servers, including IIS configurations, and customizations.

Although we've had some DPM content out for a while, we’ve just published a white paper that pulls everything together (especially backing up front-end Web servers and customizations) for Office SharePoint Server administrators. Check the white paper out here, and let us know what you think!

- Margo

P.S. Here are some of my favorite DPM resources--let me know if you've got others!

DPM/SharePoint landing page

Data Protection Manager Blog

White paper for helping sell the idea of DPM to your manager: DPM Whitepaper: Protecting SharePoint Products and Technologies

White paper for how to back up Search:

Update: August 2009: If you install the DPM Service Pack, you no longer need to do search backup through scripting!

Backing up Office SharePoint Server Search by using System Center Data Protection Manager

Hunting for backup, recovery, or availability information? Look no further!

Margo Crandall — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 23:00:00 GMT

We've been working hard behind the scenes, creating diagrams and articles to help you back up and recover MOSS, and plan and configure availability solutions. We've finally published and collected them into a resource center that you can bookmark and come back to.

In one location, you can now find:

Planning and how-to content for backup and recovery.
Pointers on how to use versioning and the recycle bins.
Content describing how to use System Center Data Protection Manager to protect Office SharePoint Server.
Availability content, including a great white paper and case study on using database mirroring in a single farm.

If you like large posters (34" x 44"), start with our models. They provide graphical overviews of key concepts and decision points.

Data Protection and Recovery		Availability

Take a look, and let us know if there's more content you'd like to see.

- Margo Crandall
Technical Writer