What To Backup
To ensure your ability to properly preserve and restore your MOM environment, you should backup several key items. These items are the MOM (OnePoint) database, the MOM Reporting (SystemCenterReporting) database, all of the Management Packs you have imported or created, including all changes and customizations you have made to them, and any files you have on the File Transfer Server.
MOM Operational Database (OnePoint)
The most important item to back up is the MOM operational database. This database contains almost all of the MOM environment configuration settings, agent information, Management Packs with customizations, operations data that has not been archived to the Reporting database, and other data required for MOM to operate properly.
This database is constantly being written to and read from, so you must backup the database regularly to preserve the latest information about your MOM environment. The database is groomed, regularly, by MOM and data is transferred to the Reporting database, if Reporting is installed. The size of the operational database does not grow in the same way that the Reporting database grows. The operational database tends to grow and shrink in size daily, whereas the Reporting database grows with each DTS job archiving operational data and shrinks only when it is groomed. The size of the operational database varies because of new operational data being written to it, and groomed from it. In times of intense data collection, the operational database can grow in size rapidly.
Important
Failure of the MOM database, without an established backup is catastrophic. It requires the rebuilding of your entire MOM environment, and results in the loss of almost all MOM-specific data. Your backup plans should include the MOM database, at a minimum.
You can use the backup and restore features in Microsoft SQL Server for this task.
MOM Reporting Database (SystemCenterReporting) and SQL Reporting Database(ReportServer)
The Reporting server contains two databases related to MOM Reporting: the MOM Reporting database and the SQL Report database. You need to back up both databases.
The MOM Reporting database holds all of the archived operational data from your MOM environment. This data is used by SQL Reporting Services to create and present the reports provided by MOM 2005. This data is important for trend analysis, performance tracking, and many other IT analysis tasks. Because this database can grow to a very large size (more than one terabyte) over time, backing it up can take longer than it takes for the operational database, but backup might not have to be done as often, because the Reporting database is only updated daily and not constantly.
Important
The MOM Reporting Database uses a simple recovery model which truncates all transactions after completion. This means that backing up the log file is not useful. Perform either a partial or complete database file backup.
The SQL Reporting database stores report definitions, report metadata, cached reports and snapshots. This information is updated as administrators manage report definitions. For example, information is updated when an administrator defines new reports, or changes the definitions of existing reports. If you do not backup this database, you can recreate report definitions by re-importing the reports, however, and cached (already-created) reports will be lost.
You can use the backup and restore features in Microsoft SQL Server for this task.
Master Database (Master)
The master database is a system database, which records all of the system-level information for a SQL Server system, including the location of the database files. It also records all logon accounts and system configuration settings. The proper functionality of the master database is key to the operation of all of the databases in a SQL Server instance.
You can use the backup and restore features in Microsoft SQL Server for this task.
MSDB Database (Msdbdata)
The MSDB database is a SQL system database, which is used by the SQL Server agent to schedule jobs and alerts and for recording operators. The proper functionality of the MSDB database is key to the operation of all the databases in a SQL Server instance.
Note
This database contains task schedules that are vital to the health of the MOM database, and should be included in your backup plan. You only need to back up this database after you first configure MOM, or if you change the scheduled agent jobs.
You can use the backup and restore features in Microsoft SQL Server for this task.
Management Packs
Management Packs contain all of the data and rules for determining how MOM manages applications, services and devices. Backing up your Management Packs is vital to restoring your MOM environment, should circumstances require this. Although backing up the MOM operational database also captures this information, backing up the Management Packs separately also allows you to re-import them separately from the database, which can be useful in cases when you must roll back the changes in one or more Management Packs. This adds an additional layer of safety, and makes exporting Management Packs fast and easy.
You can use the export and import features in MOM to complete this task. You can export Management Packs using either the MOM Administrator console or the ManagementModuleUtility.exe command line utility. Using the utility, you can automate and schedule to export of Management Packs.
File Transfer Server Files
The files that you use for File Transfer responses are not part of your MOM environment, but you might want to back up these files to make sure that they can be restored, if necessary. These files might be logs that are transferred from an agent, or software updates transferred to, and installed on, an agent.
You can use various file backup methods for these files.
Custom Files
You might consider backing up other files that are used by MOM:
ManualMC.txt, a custom text file that administrators can use to control which computers are included, or excluded, in the computer discovery and agent installation processes. If you are using this file, then it is located in the same folder where you installed MOM 2005. The default MOM 2005 installation folder is \%SystemRoot%\Program Files\Microsoft Operations Manager 2005.
Custom Administrator console (*.mmc) files.
Customized Operator console (*.omc) files.