TechTips - How to Backup Your SharePoint 2007 Farm Quickly

I am probably a little too careful when it comes to making sure that when I do something to my SharePoint 2007 Server Farm that I make sure every piece of the farm is backed up and ready for an immediate repair just in case something goes wrong. I guess I follow the old saying better safe than sorry, which when it comes to SharePoint 2007 anyone who was worked with it knows it can be a real pain to fix once you have broken it. It's a really good idea to cover your bases before making to many changes to the software or sites. In this guide I will give you my short procedure that I use every time before I make changes just so I can restore quickly if I run into problems.

I usually run through 5 steps

1 - Backup all of my SQL DBs associated with SharePoint 2007

2 - Run Backup and Restore commands (usually command line but you can use the GUI in central admin)

3 - Backup my IIS

4 - Backup the SharePoint directory (12)

5 - Move all of these backup files to a remote server (just in case!)

Steps 1 and 2 are kind of redundant because when you run the Backup and Restore commands within SharePoint 2007 it actually does do a DB backup for you. It just doesn't name the files that nicely so it can be a real pain to know which file does to what SharePoint site. I do a second DB backup on my own manually, which depending on the number of sites you have can take some time (unless you script this backup, which I did). I like having both backups just as a fall back in case there is a problem when doing a Backup via the SharePoint 2007 Central Admin (this can happen). If you do the manual backup you know for sure you have a good DB backup file.

So to do a SQL backup the way I do it (before I had my script to do this for me) is to use SQL management studio. You can get 2005 free HERE and 2008 HERE. Install it and run the program, connect to your DB server and we will get started from that point.

Click on and expand Databases

Right Click the Database you want to work with

Choose Tasks

Choose Backup

Choose your settings (like full or differential)

Choose Backup to Disk

Add location (mine is remote server X)

Click OK

Once the backup is done repeat steps for all other DBs you need to backup. Then move on to the SharePoint Backup operation via the Central Admin.

Open Central Admin

Click Operations Tab

Click Perform Backup (Backup and Restore Section)

Choose Websites you want to backup (Check box in each one you need)

Click Continue to Backup Options

Choose your type and set the location to store the file (mine is remote server X again)

Click OK

SharePoint will run through the backup and once its complete you can find the backup file where ever you told it to save. I made mine go directly to a remote server, if you didn't I suggest you move it to a remote server in case your SharePoint server dies while performing upgrades or patches or whatever you are going to be doing to the server. This way you have the file for sure if something happens to go wrong.

Now you will want to backup your entire IIS websites info just for safe keeping in case again anything goes wrong. This just covers you if you need to quickly rebuild this server or parts of the server. It's not required but I strongly recommend it, and store the files on the same remote server with the DB and Backup files.

Open IIS

Expand the server name

Right Click on Websites

Click All Tasks

Click Save configuration to file

Type a file name

Click OK

Now move the file to remote server (if you didn't make the path you saved it to the remote server)

Now you have your IIS website info backed up, also do the same steps for your application pools so they are backed up as well.

One last backup and we will be ready to make changes to the SharePoint Farm; it's also a good idea to backup the SharePoint 2007 directory that stores all the info SharePoint 2007 uses. You will simply want to copy the entire folder (C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers\12.0) to your remote server for safe keeping.

Once you have completed all of the above steps you will be pretty well protected if any problems with your SharePoint 2007 Farm. You can simply restore all of your sites, DBs, IIS and system files and start over from the beginning. Well I hope this guide helps you to protect yourself when having to administer your SharePoint 2007 Farm.