Back up and restore the entire farm (Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 technology)

Applies To: Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

Topic Last Modified: 2008-07-21

There are several methods you can use to back up and restore data for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. Key factors to consider in determining which tools to use include:

• Backup type supported (full, differential, incremental).

• Completeness of recovery and types of objects that can be recovered.

• Complexity of managing solution.

• Ability of solution to adapt to the maintenance window and database size.

Back up and restore a server farm

You can back up and restore data for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 by using any of the following mechanisms:

• Back up a farm by using built-in tools (Windows SharePoint Services 3.0)

  Restore a farm by using built-in tools (Windows SharePoint Services 3.0)

  You can use the tools included with Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 to back up and restore the server farm. The Central Administration Web site offers a simple, UI-based method to manage farm backup and recovery and to 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.

• Back up a farm by using SQL Server Tools (Windows SharePoint Services 3.0)

  Restore a farm by using SQL Server Tools (Windows SharePoint Services 3.0)

  You can use SQL Server Management Studio to get a full-fidelity, complete backup of the databases used by Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 in the server farm. This method of backup requires Microsoft SQL Server 2005 (it will not work with Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition) and you must be a member of the Administrators group on the local server computer that is running SQL Server.

• Back up and restore a farm by using DPM (Windows SharePoint Services 3.0)

  Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 (DPM) is a server software application designed to help automate and streamline data protection. With DPM, an administrator can perform a complete or partial backup and recovery of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 farms. As a part of farm backup, the configuration data stored in the Central Administration content database and the SharePoint configuration database will be backed up.

For more information about choosing a specific backup and recovery method, see Choose backup and recovery tools (Windows SharePoint Services).

See Also

Concepts

Back up and restore the farm (Windows SharePoint Services 3.0)
Create a recovery farm (Windows SharePoint Services 3.0)
Back up and restore content databases (Windows SharePoint Services 3.0)
Back up and restore Web applications by using built-in tools (Windows SharePoint Services 3.0)
Back up and restore site collections by using built-in tools (Windows SharePoint Services 3.0)
Back up and recover site objects (Windows SharePoint Services)
Back up and restore an item by using DPM (Windows SharePoint Services 3.0)
Back up and restore a site by using DPM (Windows SharePoint Services 3.0)