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).

Concepts