SharePoint 2010Backup and Recovery

How new features may change your backup and recovery strategies

Ilia SotnikovProduct Manager @ Quest Softwareilia@sharepoint-recovery.comhttp://blog.sharepoint-recovery.com@IliaSotnikov

Who am I?

• Product Manager at Quest Software

• St.Petersburg Russia• Background

– 10 years in technology, ~7 years with Quest Software

– Technical writing, support escalations, R&D program manager

– Migration and management solutions for Microsoft collaboration platforms: Exchange, SharePoint

Agenda• What is and what is not in your backup• New features you heard of: what do they really

mean?– Granular backup from Central Administration– Unattached database recovery– Configuration only backup

• Hidden gem – what you don’t see in UI– PowerShell

• Not necessarily backup features, but…– Remote BLOB Storage– Service Applications

Before we begin…SharePoint Farm

ServersFront End, Application, Index, Search, SQL

SQL Server Databases

Configuration, Search, Services,

etc.Content Database

Web Applications

Site Collections

Sites

Lists (Doc libraries, events, contacts, etc.)

Documents and Items

What’s in a backup?• All databases– Including configuration database

• Index files• Web apps configuration• Service apps configuration• IIS settings made via Central Admin or

SharePoint API– IIS websites and settings are stored in config db

• Customizations deployed as solutions– WSP files are stored in config db

What’s not in a backup?• Specific IIS settings:

– HTTP compression settings– Time-out settings– Custom Internet Server Application Programming

Interface (ISAPI) filters– Internet Protocol security (IPsec) settings– Network Load Balancing settings– Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates– Dedicated IP address settings

• Direct changes to web.config• Customizations not deployed as solutions• Claims/Forms Based Authentication

– Membership and role providers in Web.config

Central Admin – First Glance

What you can do from Central Admin

• Backup:– Farm backup– Site collection backup– Site/list export– Unattached database

recovery

• Restore:– Farm restore

Hold on, is something wrong here?• Where are site collection restore and site import?

– PowerShell• Why is unattached database recovery in the backup

group?– Great question! Let’s take a closer look

Unattached database recovery • No longer need recovery farm for list/site restore• BUT unattached content database recovery is not

recovery– Site collection backup– Site or list export

• Allows to create site collection backup, export site or list from a SharePoint content database that is not attached to any web application

• DB can originate from the same or different farm – be aware of SharePoint patch level

• Use PowerShell to import the resulting CMP– Import-SPWeb -Identity <Site URL> -Path <Export file name>

Unattached database recoverySteps for unattached database recovery:1. Find the backup file2. Restore content database to temporary SQL

location3. “Recover data from an unattached content

database” in Central Administration4. Type the SQL Instance and temporary database

names5. Select site collection, site and list to export6. SharePoint Management Shell

– Import-SPWeb cmdlet to import site or library

7. Browse to imported library and get the document

Configuration only backup• What’s in the backup?

– Antivirus– Information rights management (IRM)– Outbound e-mail settings– Customizations deployed as trusted solutions– Diagnostic logging

• What’s not included?– Web application settings– Service application settings (search, BCS, managed

metadata, web analytics, Excel services…)– Alternate access mapping– Anything that’s tied to server name or specific URLs

Configuration only backup

PowerShell for Backup and Recovery• Did STSADM go away?

– No, but all new stuff goes to PowerShell

• Backup farm or site collection, export site– Get-Help -Module Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell

– Get-Command *Backup*

• Schedule PS1 scripts• Execute remotely

– Run commands or execute scripts from workstation– Need farm admin rights– Enable CredSSP for access delegation to backend

SQL

PowerShell for Backup and Recovery• Backup-SPFarm -BackupMethod Full -Directory

"Destination-Directory“ -BackupThreads 5 –Verbose

• Backup-SPSite -Identity "http://MySite:2131/" -Path "Path to Backup file" -UseSqlSnapShot

• UseSqlSnapShot parameter:– Can be used with Backup-SPSite and Export-SPWeb– Creates database snapshot before starting backup/export– Allows to keep read/write access during site collection

backup (default is read only)– Requires SQL Server Enterprise Edition or Developer Edition– May conflict with out of the box RBS provider

PowerShell for Backup and Recovery• PowerShell is not only for SharePoint• Real power with piping results from one

cmdlet to another– Get-SPSite -Filter {$_.Owner -eq "DOMAIN\ISotnikov"} | Backup-SPSite -Path

• How about combining SharePoint, Exchange, AD and SQL cmdlets? Such as… – Backup all databases where sites are owned by

members of an AD group– Not so great with SQL yet: only allows to run a T-

SQL query from PowerShell prompt with Invoke-Sqlcmd…

PowerGUI, PowerShell & SharePoint 2010

• PowerGUI– Free community driven tool

developed by Quest– GUI and Script Editor for

PowerShell– SharePoint Power Pack:

http://www.powergui.org/entry.jspa?externalID=3022

• PowerShell Cheat Sheet– Contribution from industry experts

in both PowerShell and SharePoint– http://powergui.org/entry.jspa?exter

nalID=2812

Remote BLOB Storage aka RBS• What’s RBS?

– SQL Server feature– Way to store files outside of SharePoint content database– Requires RBS provider– SQL Server 2008 R2 RBS FILESTREAM provider, 3rd party

providers

• Supported SQL Server Editions:– SQL Server Enterprise– SQL Express for local RBS storage only – single server farms

• Enabled by default when upgrading WSS v3 standalone• Requires modifications on both SQL and SharePoint servers• Remote BLOBs are not necessarily backed up!

– BLOBs are included in SQL backup with RBS FILESTREAM– Be aware: backups can be MUCH bigger than your database– Check with your vendor if using other providers

RBS considerations• Is it practical for your environment?

– Most efficient for fewer larger BLOBs– Possible performance degrade for large amount of small BLOBs

• Microsoft best practice: use RBS when…– Content databases are larger than 500 GB– BLOB data files are larger than 256KB– Database server I/O is a performance bottleneck– Need to overcome SQL Express 2008 R2 db size limits– http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff628583.aspx– http://

www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=4ce0c906-3f71-4fff-b3f9-9462343c453f&displaylang=en

• Why look for 3rd party?– NAS is not supported by RBS FILESTREAM– Granularity and flexibility– Ease of deployment

Service Apps• No more Shared Service Provider (SSP)

– Service applications are now separate

• You can backup and restore service apps individually– Central Administration > Farm Backup and Restore– PowerShell– http://

technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee428318.aspx

• Considerations for service apps backup strategy:– Services can span multiple farms – trust certificates

are required and are not part of the backup– Be aware of the new databases if you do SQL backup

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