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Back up and restore databases (Office SharePoint Server)

Applies To: Office SharePoint Server 2007

This Office product will reach end of support on October 10, 2017. To stay supported, you will need to upgrade. For more information, see , Resources to help you upgrade your Office 2007 servers and clients.

 

Topic Last Modified: 2008-09-16

Important

Although the configuration database and the SharePoint Central Administration Web site content database can be backed up, restoring backups of the configuration database and Central Administration content database from a farm by using the tools built in to SharePoint Products and Technologies is not supported.
This is because data in these databases may not be synchronized with data in other Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 databases. Therefore, the tools built in to SharePoint Products and Technologies do not recover these databases during a farm-level recovery.
If this data is not synchronized, users might experience various random errors. For more information, see Microsoft Knowledge Base article 948725: Restoration of the configuration database is not supported in SharePoint Server 2007 and in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=117755&clcid=0x409).

You can recover a farm, including the configuration database and Central Administration content database, in the following ways:

If the configuration of Central Administration content databases becomes unsynchronized, you must re-create both databases by using the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard or Psconfig command-line tool.

To protect the configuration database and Central Administration content database:

The two most commonly used methods for backing up Office SharePoint Server 2007 databases are:

  • The built-in backup tools included with Office SharePoint Server 2007.

  • The database backup tools included with Microsoft SQL Server 2005.

Built-in tools
The Central Administration Web site offers a simple, UI-based method to manage farm backup and recovery as well as view job history and status. The Stsadm command line tool offers a faster and more flexible command line-based approach to farm backup and recovery. You can use the Stsadm command line tool in conjunction with Windows Scheduler to schedule delayed or periodic backups.

Microsoft SQL Server 2005
SQL Server 2005 provides high-performance backup and restore capability. Using the tools included with SQL Server 2005, you can prepare Office SharePoint Server 2007 to recover quickly from several potential data-loss events:

  • Media failure.

  • User errors, for example, dropping a table by mistake.

  • Hardware failures, for example, a damaged disk drive or permanent loss of a server.

  • Natural disasters.

The benefits of using SQL Server 2005 to back up and restore your Office SharePoint Server 2007 databases include:

  • Existing SQL Server disaster recovery strategies can be re-used.

  • Full and differential backups can be configured with added verification.

  • Provides a full-fidelity data backup.

  • Can be faster than Office SharePoint Server backups.

Back up and restore your databases

Note
If your IT environment requires that your database administrator (DBA) must back up or restore the databases associated with the Shared Services Provider (SSP), you must coordinate your backup and restore operations with your DBA. Whether you use built-in tools or SQL Server 2005, the account used to back up the databases must be a member of the SQL Server db_backupoperator fixed database role. The account used to restore the databases must be a member of the SQL Server dbcreator fixed server role.

To backup your Office SharePoint Server 2007 databases, see Back up databases (Office SharePoint Server).

To restore your Office SharePoint Server 2007 databases, see Restore databases (Office SharePoint Server).

To restore your Office SharePoint Server 2007 databases by using DPM, see Back up and restore databases by using DPM (Office SharePoint Server).

See Also

Concepts

Back up and restore a farm (Office SharePoint Server 2007)
Back up and restore an entire farm (Office SharePoint Server 2007)
Create a recovery farm (Office SharePoint Server 2007)
Back up and restore Web applications by using built-in tools (Office SharePoint Server 2007)
Back up and restore site collections by using built-in tools (Office SharePoint Server 2007)
Back up and restore SSPs (Office SharePoint Server 2007)
Back up and restore SSO (Office SharePoint Server 2007)
Back up and restore My Sites by using built-in tools (Office SharePoint Server 2007)
Back up and restore InfoPath forms by using built-in tools (Office SharePoint Server 2007)
Back up and restore an item by using DPM (Office SharePoint Server)
Back up and restore a site by using DPM (Office SharePoint Server)