Backup - Microsoft SharePoint Server

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Overview

Supported Backup Types

Backup Considerations for This Agent

Advanced Backup Options

Overview

Plan your backup jobs for this agent by reviewing the following information:

For an overview of backup jobs, see Backup Data.
For a list of supported data types for this agent, see Supported Data Types.
For information on subclients, see Subclients.
- For information on configuring subclients for this agent, see Subclients - SharePoint Server.
- For information on excluding data via subclients, see Excluding Data from Data Protection Operations.

Supported Backup Types

The SharePoint Database backup sets support the following backup types:

Full Backups

The SharePoint Document backup sets support the following backup types:

Backup Considerations for This Agent

Before performing any backup procedures for this agent, review the following information:

Permissions

The Base Services of the client will run under the user account that is specified. Use an account that meets this criteria:
- member of the local Administrator Group
- member of the SharePoint Administrator Group
- System Administrator role on the SQL Server Instance
In addition, this account must have "Log on as Service" permissions to ensure the Communication (CVD) Services will start. For more information on Base and Communication (CVD) Services, see Services.

Refer to the Knowledge Base article Galaxy Service Account User Information for Windows 2003 and Window Server 2003 clients available from the Maintenance Advantage web site.
For successful backup and restore of site collections or personal sites, the SharePoint Administrator Account should also be added as user with Full control for all sites. It can be done using Policy for Web Application (Application Management - Application Security - Policy for Web Application).
For backups with the Direct Database Access option, in addition to having Policy for Web Application permissions, the SharePoint administrator account must be the site collection administrator in order to back up SharePoint list and library views.

MS SharePoint Server Database

For Microsoft Sharepoint Foundation 2010 and SharePoint Server 2010 stand-alone environments, the SQL Server service credentials for SharePoint instance should be changed to Local System Account from Network Service for the Database backupset to properly backup site collections as well as database files.
When SharePoint is configured in a Server Farm configuration, SQL databases must be backed up using the SQL iDataAgent. See Microsoft SQL Server Run backups using the SharePoint Database backup set at approximately the same time as the SQL iDataAgent backups of the respective databases.
Farm configuration SQL Databases with Unicode names should be backed up using other SQL backup tools since only standard alphanumeric characters are supported for the Microsoft SQL Server iDataAgent. The SQL Server iDataAgent does not support databases with Extended ASCII or UNICODE characters in their names.
To prevent SharePoint Database backup sets backup errors (e.g.,"..The log file for database 'DB_NAME' is full. Back up the transaction log for the database to free up some log space…") caused by full SQL Database Transaction Logs, it is recommended to back up SQL Database and Transaction logs using the Microsoft SQL Server iDataAgent or other SQL backup tools.
When backing up a Site Collection, the data is moved from the server to a local file under the Job Results directory. SharePoint Database operations stage data to the Job Results directory that can be set from the CommCell Console. See Change the Job Results Path of a Client for step-by-step instructions.
When the bUseSPAPI registry key is created, SharePoint API's are used to back up and restore site collections.
When the dwUseSqlSnapshot registry key is created, SharePoint 2010 site collections can be backed up using SQL database snapshots if the database server is running an Enterprise Edition of Microsoft SQL Server.
To backup SharePoint Database data, the nMixedModeOverrideVersion registry key value can be set to 2003 or 2007 respectively. By default, if the key does not exist, SharePoint 2007 data will be backed up. When the key is set to 2003, SharePoint 2003 data will be backed up. If set to 2007, SharePoint 2007 data will be backed up.
For SharePoint 2003 and 2007 Site Collection that is 15 gigabytes (GB) or smaller can successfully be backed up and restored using a DataBase Backup Set Site Collection level backup and restore. For a SharePoint 2003 and 2007 Site Collection that is larger than 15 gigabytes (GB), you need to backup and restore using a Content Database level backup and restore. For more information, see Restore Data - SharePoint Server - How To.
In an environment where two different versions of SharePoint Server (e.g., 2003 and 2007) co-exist on the same client with the SharePoint Server iDataAgent, an additional Database type backup set should be created to backup SharePoint Database components for other version.
To successfully backup a SharePoint Database in a Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) environment, where the instance name of the Windows Internal Database resembles something like MachineName\Microsoft##SSEE, you need to:
1. Change the flag Hide Instance to No in SQL Server Configuration Manager→Protocols for MachineName\Microsoft##SSEE.
2. Ensure that the SQL Server Browser service is running in SQL Server Configuration Manager→SQLServer 2005 Services.
3. Ensure that Named Pipes is enabled in SQL Server Configuration Manager→Protocols for MachineName\Microsoft##SSEE.
The four databases namely Archive, Draft, Published and Reporting cannot be distributed over multiple subclient. They need to be backed up and restored together as they belong to the same PWA (Project Web Access) Site.
For SharePoint database backups in an all-in-one configuration, install the Calypso software with either 32 or 64-bit Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Management Objects Collection or SQL Server 2008 Shared Management Objects.

If you have installed the 32-bit SQL Server 2008 Shared Management Objects on a 64-bit client, then you may see this error: Could not load file or assembly "Microsoft.SqlServer.BatchParser, Version=10.0.0.0".
For SharePoint Server 2010, the lock state parameter initially has the settings of none or no additions. During backup, the site collection lock state is temporarily set to read-only mode during the backup. By specifying the dwNoSiteLock registry key, the lock settings can be set to Read and Write mode. The backup would record the original site collection lock state so that it can be restored to its original state.

MS SharePoint Server Document

For SharePoint Server iDataAgent installed on a SharePoint Server 2003 client, incremental and differential backups of version-enabled libraries will back up the previous version and any new versions since the last backup.
A full backup is recommended if upgrading SharePoint 2003 to 2007 on a SharePoint Server iDataAgent client. This ensures that new metadata will be included in the backup.
In a SharePoint Farm environment, to ensure a successful backup when the Use direct database access option is selected, a SQL Server Native client should be installed. For more information, see Direct Database Access. This feature is not supported for host-named site collections, for site collections which Content database is configured with RBS, site collections on WSS version 2.0 or SharePoint Server 2003.
- For direct database backups of Document backup sets, you can use the nItemDataChunkSizeInMBForBackup registry key to specify the amount of data in each chunk of backup content. The more data that is allowed in a single chunk, the fewer number of queries that are executed on the backup contents. If the amount of data exceeds the total amount specified in the registry key, more chunks will be created, up to the specified number of chunks. For details, see the entry in Registry Keys.
- For direct database backups of the Document backup sets, you can use the nItemBatchSize registry key to specify the number of items that are included in a batch. The greater number of items in a batch, the fewer number of queries executed for the remaining items. The minimum and maximum item thresholds are determined by the available resources on the machine. For details, see the entry in Registry Keys.
Due to Loopback check functionality in Microsoft Windows, backups of Major/Minor versioned documents may be unsuccessful. This can be corrected by setting the DisableLoopbackCheck registry key to 1 under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa\DisableLoopbackCheck and reboot the SharePoint Web Server. Refer to Microsoft Article ID: 887993 at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/887993 for details.
Filters can be used in conjunction with the "Items That Failed" list on the data protection Job History Report to eliminate backup or archive failures by excluding items which consistently fail that are not integral to the operation of the system or applications. Some items fail because they are locked by the operating system or application and cannot be opened at the time of the data protection operation. This often occurs with certain system-related files and database application files.

Also, keep in mind that you will need to run a full backup after adding failed files to the filter in order to remove them.
For Document backup sets, the nLargeFileSizeThresholdValInMBForBackup registry key can be used to specify backing up files over a certain size. For example, if 40 is specified, all files larger than 40MB it will be backed up. This is logged in SPDocBackup.log, which will state the file size threshold value. Default is 50 Mb.
Set the dwDisableAutoDiscovery registry key to 1 if you want to disable auto-discovery of sites for user-created subclients.
While .aspx files for basic Web Part and Dashboard Pages from a Library can be backed up and restored, restoring the file will not restore the Web Part to the page. Modifications made to the page using the Content Editor Web Part will not be restored and cannot be made to the file after it has been restored.
Library items that have a size of 0Kb will not be backed up. Exceptions may be thrown with these empty library items.
If a backslash ('\') character is present in a List item name, it cannot be backed up. To successfully back up the List item, it is recommended to rename the item without the backslash.