Protecting a SharePoint Farm by Using Mirrored Databases

  • Article

Applies To: System Center Data Protection Manager 2010

System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM) extends DPM’s support for SharePoint to include support for SharePoint content databases that uses SQL Server database mirroring technology. This additional support does not translate into any major changes in the procedure to protect or recover SharePoint data in DPM.

Prerequisites

  • Install the DPM protection agent on both the computers that are running the instance of SQL Server and hosts the principal and mirror database.

Note

DPM does not support mirroring the database on the same instance of SQL Server.

Common Scenarios

A protected SharePoint database gets mirrored

At the time of the backup, DPM detects that the database has been mirrored and raises an alert that farm configuration has been changed. DPM treats the mirrored database as a new database in the farm and automatically protects it. Although the alert is not deactivated, all the content in the SharePoint farm will continuously be protected. To inactivate this alert, you must stop protection for the farm (with retain data) and re-protect it.

Note

Even if failovers between principal and mirrored copies of the database occur, DPM maintains a single replica for the mirror.

Principal partner in a mirror fails over and fails back before next backup

This scenario does not affect protection in any way unless a backup is in progress.

Principal partner fails and the mirror server takes over

DPM detects that the mirror is now the principal partner, stops the backup job, and performs a consistency check after 30 minutes on the database that failed over. Alternatively, you can start a manual consistency check on the farm after the alert is raised.

Note

If, during these 30 minutes, the database fails back to the original principal, DPM detects this and resumes protection after performing a consistency check.

A mirror is broken

When the mirror is broken for a mirrored SQL Server database that is currently protected by DPM, backups fail with alerts. This is similar to the behavior when the protected SharePoint database gets mirrored.