Restore Data - SharePoint Server

Topics | How To | Full System Restore | Troubleshoot | Related Topics

Overview

Restore Considerations for This Agent

Restore Destinations

• In-Place Restore
• Out-of-place Restore
• Cross-Application Restores

Overview

The following page describes the agent-specific restore options. Additional restore options are accessible from the Related Topics menu.

SharePoint Database

The SharePoint Database backup sets allow you to restore SharePoint Database Components and Site Collections.

You can perform the following types of restores:

When you restore the SharePoint data, you are over-writing your existing data. Data from after the date of that backup will be lost. The restore operation only provides data from the point in time when it was backed up.

If the SQL databases for the SharePoint Server were not backed up by the SharePoint Server iDataAgent, then they must first be restored on the SQL Server using the Microsoft SQL iDataAgent before performing the SharePoint Server Database Restore Procedure.

For SharePoint Portal Server 2003, if you configure Shared Services, the Portal Site that provides the Shared Services must be restored/exist before restoring any other Portal Sites.

SharePoint Document

The SharePoint Document backup sets restore the Top Level sites, sub-sites, Areas, Libraries, and Lists.

Restoring a SharePoint Server Document

The system offers the following options for restoring selected Library items when the object already exists in Non-Versioned Libraries, which are available in the Restore Options dialog box.

• Unconditional Overwrite - If an item that is selected for restore already exists, then that item will be overwritten by the restored item.
• Skip - If an item is selected for restore and that item already exists, it will not be restored.

• Restore All Versions - Specifies that all versions of a multi-versioned document will be restored to a Version Enabled Library.

NOTES

• Documents restored to Version Enabled libraries will be restored with Unconditional Overwrite regardless of the option selected.

• Documents restored to Version Disabled libraries will be restored with Skip regardless of the option selected.

Restore Considerations for This Agent

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

SharePoint Server - General

If you have not already done so for the Client to which you are restoring data, ensure the Client is configured as follows:

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.

SharePoint Server Database

• When restoring a Site Collection, temp space is required under the Job Results folder for staging Site Collections, Portal Indexes, and SharePoint metadata.

• After restore, a Site Collection will have a new SiteID and will show up as new content during a discover/backup operation. You should manually find the restored site collection and reassign it to the previously assigned subclient.

  Otherwise, the backup of an empty subclient may fail, which displays an "ArchiveIndexfailed on MediaAgent - index files are missing, possibly due to a failover" error message and generates an "Failed to record actual create time in index files" event.

• 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 WSS Web Application Content Database restores with Extend URL option selected, these registry keys are applicable:

  • The sOwnerLogin registry key is used during an in-place restore of a web application with the original name using the specified owner login.

  • The sOwnerEmail registry key is used during an in-place restore of a web application with the original name using the specified owner email address.

  • The bDoNotUseNTLM registry key is used to change the default authentication type of a restored Web application from NTLM to Negotiate (Kerberos).

• For SharePoint 2010 stand-alone deployments, ensure that the SQL Server instance service account and SharePoint 2010 Timer service account are switched to Local System. Once the restore is finished, you can switch back to using the previous accounts (e.g., Network Service).

• For SharePoint Server 2010, these registry keys are applicable for site collection restore operations:

  • Site collections that are overwritten can be gradually deleted over time by a timer job instead of all at once by enabling the dwGradualDelete registry key. This key can reduce impact on SharePoint and SQL Server performance and is recommended for large site collections.

  • The sDatabaseName registry key can be used to specify the SQL Server content database as to where the site collection data should be restored. If the content database is not specified, the site collection data will be restored to the location where there is a high unused capacity of the site location and also its database status is ready.

  • The sDatabaseServer registry key can be used to specify the SQL Server containing the content database specified by the sDatabaseName registry key. Both registry keys need to be configured.

  • The sHostHeaderWebApplication registry key can be used to restore a site collection with the host name.

SharePoint Server Document

• When both SharePoint 2003 and SharePoint 2007 servers co-exist on the same client with the SharePoint Agent, the subclient content needs to be properly configured.

  See Subclient Content when SharePoint 2003 and 2007 Servers Co-exist for more information.

• The dSharePointDocLocalRestoreDir key is used to restore SharePoint documents to anywhere on the file system. Docs will be restored to location specified by dSharePointDocLocalRestoreDir key only if  nLargeFileSizeThresholdValInMBForRestore key is set to 0.
• Option "Unconditional Overwrite" is not applicable for Site Pages. Web Parts on such pages are not overwritten and the user will see duplicate Web Parts. Therefore it is recommended to delete Site Page prior to running recovery operations.

Site Collections, Top Level Sites, Subsites, Web Applications

• For full-fidelity restores, Site Collections should be restored using SharePoint Database backup sets.
• A Portal Site (SharePoint 2003) must be restored using the SharePoint Database backup sets.
• After restoring a Top Level Site, re-configure the connection to the Portal in the Site Settings.

• 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).

• To restore a site when standard Libraries and Lists were renamed (e.g., Shared Documents renamed to Instructions), create an empty site using a site template and then restore the content.
• To restore a Top Level Site that was created using a custom template from the central template gallery, it is recommended to create an empty site using the same template type prior to restoring.
• For SharePoint 2003, you should upgrade the virtual servers if they are in the "Upgrade" state prior to restoring entire sites to the virtual servers.
• To restore sites created using a Room Equipment Reservations template, it is recommended to Restore a SharePoint Server Site Collection from the database backup set level. Restoring individual lists, such as Resources, Reservations, and Resource Type is not supported unless the site and lists exist and they are restored in the following order:
  • Items from List Resource Type
  • Items from List Resources
  • Items from List Reservations 

Areas

• Portal Site bucket Areas will be restored into the first available bucket.

Discussion Boards

• Some columns may be duplicated when restoring a Discussion Board from SharePoint Portal Server 2003 to SharePoint Server 2007. If so, delete any duplicate columns that are not needed.
• During entire Discussion Board restore:
  • On SharePoint 2003, restored Threaded Views are restored as Flat Views.
  • On SharePoint 2007, it is recommended to delete restored Flat and Threaded Views and use those that are automatically created (Flat.aspx and Threaded.aspx).

Library and Library Items

• 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.

• SharePoint Server 2010 Asset and Dashboard Libraries can be backed up and restored.
• Document versions are always restored as new versions for Version Enabled Libraries. A restored document will not be available with the same version number it had when it was backed up.
• If a document from a Version Enabled Library is restored to a Version Disabled library, only the latest document version will be restored.
• If all document versions from a Library that tracks Major and Minor versions are restored to the same Library or a different Library with the same settings, then all versions will be restored as Minor versions.
• If all document versions from a Library that tracks Major and Minor versions are restored to a Library that tracks only Major versions, then all versions will be restored as Major versions.

• During a library restore, the library's document template is set to default value. If the library used a different template file, or none at all, you must change the document template properties to the desired value using the "Specify a Custom Template" procedure under "Set up a template for a library" in http://office.microsoft.com to work around this issue.

• If the dAddDocWithFPRPC registry key is set to 1, some metadata for SharePoint items (e.g., comments, "Modified By") are restored using FrontPage RPC (FPRPC) as opposed to the standard object model API.
• Restoring Explorer Views may overwrite or corrupt existing Explorer Views and may not work properly. If an Explorer View is overwritten or corrupted, to recreate a Explorer View for SharePoint 2007 libraries:
  • Go to "Create View" menu.
  • Click on "Explorer View" under the "Start from a view template".
  • Type in "Explorer View" as the View Name.
  To recreate Explorer Views for SharePoint 2003, the entire Library must be restored and the Explorer View that is created will automatically work.
• While browsing documents in CommCell Console, the size of documents may not match the size that appears in the SharePoint Server User Interface. This is due to metadata being backed up with the document, which artificially could increase its size.

• After restoring an XML form to a Forms Library, do the following to relink it to the Forms Library:

  1. Open the Forms Library in Internet Explorer.
  2. Go to Form Library settings.
  3. Click Relink forms to this form library.
  4. Select the restored form.
  5. Click Relink Forms.

List and List Items

• List items can only be restored to Lists of the same type.
• For versioned list items, since list items are always restored as new items without the same list ID, multiple lists and multiple list items with the same name are allowed. Therefore, you may see duplicates of lists and their items.
• Threaded discussion boards are restored and displayed as Flat views. After restoring, a Threaded view can be simulated if you select the Group By "Subject" View setting.
• Any deleted Lists linked to by Outlook, Excel, Access, etc. must be relinked after the restore.
• Delete any unwanted List Views after the restore (they will appear numerous times).
• Restore of a List may fail if restored to a site that does not have that list template type. For example, some Meeting Workspaces have lists that are specific to the Meeting Workspace, so these cannot be restored to a Document Workspace or a Team Site. List template keywords from Knowledge Base site might not exist on Non-English setup.
• For Survey Lists, the "Allow Multiple Responses" option must be selected in SharePoint List Settings, or the restore will complete with errors.
• For a restored list, list item, versioned document, workflow, or view, the value of the "Modified By" column will be the name of the user account that backed up the item and the "Modified Time" column will be the date and time when the item was backed up as long as the Use direct database access to restore selected entities option is selected in Subclient Properties. The versioned documents and items were created in a Document Library, Form Library, Wiki Library, Picture Library, Custom Lists and Tasks, etc.
• Restoring multi-versioned list items (individual items or the entire list) with a renamed "Title" column causes each version of the item to be restored as a separate item.

SharePoint Offline Mining

• When the Browse data from SQL browse option is selected in the Browse Options dialog box, virtual server names are displayed instead of virtual server URLs while browsing content of an offline SharePoint 2003 database.

• When the Browse data from SQL browse option is selected in the Browse Options dialog box, items from Libraries located in Portal Areas are not available for restore while browsing content of an offline SharePoint 2003 database.

Restore Destinations

SharePoint Server Document

In-Place Restore

• Same path/destination

By default, the SharePoint Server iDataAgent restores data to the client computer and path from which it originated; this is referred to as an in-place restore.

• To restore a Site Collection, you should restore a Top-Level Site first and then the subsites.
• To restore a deleted Sub-site, browse and select the site and leave all restore options by default.

The following section enumerates the types of restore destinations that are supported by the SharePoint Server iDataAgent. See Restore/Recover/Retrieve Destinations - Support for a list of Agents supporting each restore destination type.

Out-of-Place Restore

• Same path/destination
• Different path/destination

You can also restore the data to another Client computer in the CommCell. Keep in mind the following considerations when performing such restores:

• The destination client must reside in the same CommCell as the client whose data was backed up.
• The restore destination must be on another SharePoint Server with the SharePoint Server iDataAgent installed and operational.
• The destination server must either be in the same domain as the original server, or be in a domain having the proper trust relationship established both with the original domain, as well as all of the domains with which the original server’s domain had trust relationships.
• The restore data will assume the rights (i.e., permissions) of the parent directory.
• To restore a site created by a user-defined Site Template to a server in a different farm, the Site Template must exist with the same ID in the destination computer. To change the configuration ID for user defined templates, open the CustomTemplates table in the Configuration database and modify the ID column for the row for the custom template used.
• To restore a Top Level Site to a different path, browse and select the Site Collection level for the restore destination path.

Cross-Application Restores

SharePoint Server Database

• Cross-application restores of databases between different versions of SharePoint Servers are not supported.

SharePoint Server Document

• Cross-application restores for library and list items to the same or higher SharePoint Server version are supported.