Topics | How To
SharePoint Offline Mining is available from the CommCell Console. Offline mining allows you to browse and recover SharePoint document and picture libraries from an offline copy of a SharePoint Database. This is especially useful in cases where there is not a granular level backup available that contains the data to be recovered.
This procedure requires creating an offline copy of one SharePoint Configuration database and one or more SharePoint Content databases. The Configuration database stores the SharePoint configuration settings and the Content databases store and manage site content. Essentially, these databases are SQL databases that contain Microsoft SQL Server data.
The offline copy can be created in several ways, which are discussed below in Configuration. In case SharePoint Servers do not use enterprise-level SQL servers, the offline copy can be created by restoring a SharePoint Database backup. Once the offline mining database is available, you can browse and restore SharePoint documents from the CommCell Console.
The following are prerequisites to using this feature:
In addition to the Configuration database, plan a recovery strategy by identifying which SharePoint Content databases that you would like to perform a data mining operation on, and the time range (latest data or point-in-time) for the image of the database to be restored to an offline copy. Only one Configuration database can reside in an offline mining database, but it can contain one or more Content databases.
This feature requires a Feature License to be available in the CommServe.
Review general license requirements included in the License Administration section of Books Online. Also, for step-by-step instructions on how to view the license information, see View All Licenses in Books Online.
The SharePoint Offline Mining Tools require the Offline Mining Enabler for SharePoint license. This license is consumed when Enable Offline Mining is selected in the General tab of the agent Properties dialog box of the SharePoint Server iDataAgent.
Offline SharePoint Mining requires no specific installation steps. However, to mine offline SharePoint documents:
* The SharePoint Server application itself is not required on the destination client machine.
An offline mining database can be created with one of the following methods:
The method that you choose depends on your preference and the hardware that is available in your environment.
The offline mining database can be created with an Out-of-place Restore operation.
The offline mining database can be created with CDR by replicating the SharePoint Configuration and SharePoint Content databases from the source client to the destination client machine.
After preparing the offline database on the destination client machine, data is ready for mining and recovery. The following unique operation can be performed for SharePoint Offline Mining:
Best practice guidelines include the following:
Consider the following prior to configuring and using this feature:
The following types of data cannot be retrieved when mining SharePoint data from an offline mining database: