SharePoint Backup and Recovery

Using Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 and Windows SharePoint Services can expand and simplify collaboration within the enterprise. However, backing up and recovering SharePoint data, especially on a granular level, isn't simple. None of the three SharePoint backup tools Microsoft provides (Spsbackup, Stsadm, and Smigrate) let you recover a single file, list item, or document library. Microsoft leaves granular recovery solutions to third-party vendors.

I compare four SharePoint backup and recovery solutions: Symantec Backup Exec Agent for Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server; CommVault Galaxy Backup & Recovery; AvePoint DocAve 3.1 and SharePoint Disaster Recovery (SPDR) 1.0; and Webfox Backup Elite SC V 3.0. In evaluating these solutions, I assume that a backup plan is in place for servers and other support services, such as Microsoft SQL Server and Exchange Server. I evaluate each solution's ease of use, functionality, price, and expandability. Table 1 provides a detailed, side-by-side comparison of product features.

Symantec Backup Exec Agent for Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server
Before you install Symantec Backup Exec Agent for Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server, you need to install Symantec Backup Exec 10d for Windows Servers. You begin the installation of Symantec Backup Exec 10d by running the Environment Check utility. I like this tool; it revealed some missing items on my system, thus saving me from trying to complete the installation without having all the requisite resources. The straightforward, surprisingly quick installation described all my options and let me install Backup Exec on both local and remote machines.

I had Exchange, SQL Server, and Share-Point Portal Server 2003 all on the same box, so I installed agents for all of them. I know Exchange isn't part of SharePoint administration, but I wanted to see the agent anyway. The agent for SQL Server won't back up the SharePoint databases if the SharePoint Portal Server agent has been configured to back them up. This nice touch certainly could save on resources. Software compression was available for my target hard disk, as were options for staging my backups from disk to tape, and I controlled the schedule.

The First Startup Wizard walked me through the process of setting the media management defaults, verifying device and drive configurations, adding logon accounts, and setting dates for the backed-up data to be overwritten or discarded. Media sets permitted easy media management. I found Backup Exec easy to use for a first-timer, and an E-Learning course was included on a CDROM, although I didn't need to use it.

The SharePoint Portal Server agent detects the components of the farm in which it's installed and lets you add other farms to the management console. The agent identifies both SharePoint Portal Server and Windows SharePoint Services databases, which must be backed up together. The agent also automatically backs up the single sign-on (SSO) database and the encryption key and can manage the backup of SharePoint Portal Server 2001 databases if needed. The product backs up the config_db database, but in most cases you'd rebuild this database, not restore it. Likewise, you're likely to find rebuilding indexes easier and more reliable than restoring them.

You can restore to the same database server or a different one. The restoration process involves rebuilding the farm just as Spsbackup does, unless you're completely restoring all members of the farm from a point-in-time backup of the farm.

Backup Exec supports moving backups from disk to tape or to off-site locations, but it seems to treat this process as a separate "backup" of the backup job, requiring separate scheduling instead of treating it as a continuation of the backup process. It also supports a synthetic backup—a full backup built from a previous full backup and subsequent incremental or differential backups without using the original source files or putting overhead on the source server. Synthetic backups, however, retain only the last approved version of a document. Figure 1 shows the Backup Exec console with the Job Setup tab.

Backup Exec provides standard alerting and reporting capabilities. Alerts include notification by email, pager, or printer. Backup Exec uses Crystal Reports and can distribute reports via email and publish them in HTML or Adobe Acrobat PDF format. The reports can help identify failed jobs and skipped files.

Although this product can restore to new locations, it doesn't let you restore individual items from within the SharePoint database. If you already use Backup Exec, adding the SharePoint Portal Server agent for disaster recovery certainly makes sense as long as you realize that you'll need another solution to recover an individual document, document library, site, or site collection.