Bridge the SharePoint File-Restore Gap

Additional Approaches
Other approaches you can take within a second portal environment don't require doing a complete restore of the portal databases to find deleted data. If you can narrow critical document libraries and lists to those found within a few site collections, sites, or subsites, you can back up and restore smaller sections of the portal more frequently, on a periodic or an ad hoc basis. In this partial?file-restore approach, you isolate backups and restores at the SharePoint Services level by using the smigrate.exe command-line migration tool or the stsadm.exe command-line administrative tool to mirror smaller site structures. Running stsadm.exe with the -o backup and -o restore options lets you back up and restore site collections from one environment to another; smigrate.exe provides similar functionality for individual sites. You can find more information about these tools in the Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Administrator's Guide (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/office/sps2003/downloads/admdwnld.mspx) and the Windows SharePoint Services Administrator's Guide (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sppt/wss/wssagabs.mspx).

This strategy of backing up and restoring smaller sections lets you perform more frequent and rapid backups and file restores than a full backup-and-restore operation. However, it requires that you correctly identify and maintain a list of critical site collections or sites to back up.

Another approach provides file-restore solutions through the SharePoint content databases within SQL Server. (For more information, see the Web-exclusive sidebar "Restoring Files by Using SharePoint Content Databases" at http://www.windowsitpro.com, InstantDoc ID 93240.)

Third-party vendors such as AvePoint and Nintex also offer products that provide file-restore and undelete capabilities.

No matter how you deal with the Share-Point backup and restore gap, you need to take storage needs into account and, depending on which approach you take, consider securing the duplicated data so that most users can't access it. Otherwise, you might overlook duplicate data when securing SharePoint.

Not Perfect, But an Improvement
Microsoft has improved restore functionality in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. In the current beta version, you'll see a two-stage undelete process. After deletion, a file remains in a recycle bin for a configurable amount of time, during which a user could restore it. An administrator can also restore user files and set file-retention policies based on configurable storage quotas. In addition, the beta's backup utilities provide differential, incremental, and full backup options.

As any IT professional can tell you, no perfect software product exists. We hope the solutions we've offered will help you bridge the gap in backup and file restore in Share-Point.