Best Practices for Restoring Sharepoint Resources

Description

Introduction: This document describes the best practices for performing restores of Microsoft Sharepoint resources. These restore recommendations assume the backups have been performed with the Agent for Microsoft Sharepoint in Backup Exec. Note that any redirection of the following resources must be accomplished using the Backup Exec Microsoft Sharepoint Redirection restore job settings, not the File Redirection or Microsoft SQL Redirection settings.

 -Sharepoint Server 2010/2013 and Sharepoint Foundation 2010/2013
ConfigurationV4-DB - Sharepoint 2010 - This database holds the master layout of the Sharepoint environment.
ConfigurationV5-DB - Sharepoint 2013 - This database holds the master layout of the Sharepoint environment.

• Restore - This database should only be restored in the event of a full disaster recovery where it is the last resource restored.  In some rare situations, it may be necessary to restore this database by itself but any changes made to the Sharepoint Farm since the backup was created will be lost. If a restore like this is required, the Configuration Database should be restored by itself.
• Redirect - This database should only be redirected into an alternate SQL server instance for database testing or data access using SQL tools.

 
Global Settings - Consists of metadata for the search settings for the Sharepoint environment.

• Restore - This item can be restored individually to recover the Sharepoint environment search settings.
• Redirect - This resource is not recommended for redirection.

InfoPath Forms Services - Allow creation and use of electronic templates / forms

• Restore - The metadata items beneath this heading should only be restored as a group.
• Redirect - This resource is not recommended for redirection.

Microsoft sharepoint Foundation Web Applications - Consists of Content databases and metadata for the Web Applications configured in Sharepoint.

• Restore - Any content databases desired may be restored from within this resource.  Additional restore job settings are available if restoring an entire Web Application related to how the IIS Application Pool and web site are preserved or recreated.  There are additional settings for reconnecting the SQL database and bringing the Web Application/Site links back.  See the Administration Guide for restore job settings.  Any content db restore will result in deletion and recreation of Web Application , the restored database will be put back in place and any databases which were there already will be connected back to the Web Application after recreation.
• Recovery - Note that when restoring content databases, at the successful completion of the restore job, a Job Warning will be received.  This warning shows the required steps to complete the restore of the Sharepoint Web Application.  These steps involve watching for the Web Application to reappear within Sharepoint Central Admin and then restarting IIS on the Sharepoint Web Server using the command line command - iisreset /noforce. 
• Redirect - Any content databases may be redirected to an alternate sharepoint environment or SQL instance.  It is possible to redirect content database(s) to SQL then reconnect them to an existing Sharepoint Web Application in the same Sharepoint environment the databases originated from.  These databases are the only Sharepoint resource with full GRT capability (Sharepoint 2010 only).  GRT items may be restored directly, redirected to another site/library/list (Backup Exec 2012 onwards with Sharepoint 2010 only), or redirected to disk (Sharepoint 2010 only). Note that only files redirected to disk will result in a usable item, Sites/Subsites/Lists/List Items redirected to disk will result in a 0 KB file with the name of the item restored and are not usable. 

 
Services - Contains resources that store temporary state info used by Sharepoint Server features.  Also contains the settings for the sandboxed code service.

• Restore - All resources beneath Services should be restored as a group rather than individualcomponents.
• Redirect – A redirected restore of these resources is not recommended.

 
Shared Service Applications and Proxies - contains the Shared Services Applications, metadata, and proxies.

• Restore - Only Shared Services Application or Application/Metadata resources should be restored.  Proxies should not be restored individually (see below paragraph).  If you want to restore multiple service applications, you should restore each one individually as a best practice. You may be able to restore more than one service application at a time, but some service applications may interfere with each other during the restore job. Note that SharePoint 2010/2013 service applications use service application proxies. The proxies use URLs to act as virtual links between the service applications and the SharePoint services.  If you want to restore an existing SharePoint service application, you can either delete the existing service application or you can let Backup Exec restore over it. In either case, however, you do not need to restore the corresponding service application proxy.  When you restore a SharePoint service application, the service application contains new URI information. Therefore, it requires a new service application proxy to function properly. Backup Exec always creates a new service application proxy for the restored service application.
• Redirect - A redirected restore of these resources is not recommended.

Sharepoint Foundation Help Search - contains Search database and index files used for content search within the Sharepoint environment

• Restore - Should be restored as a combination.  Beneath each resource choose the same backup date/time and restore them all at once.
• Redirect - This resource is not recommended for redirection.

 
WSS_Administration - Consists of the content database and metadata for the Administrative Web Application.

• Restore - Similar to the configuration database it is not recommended to restore this database except in a disaster recovery scenario because of synchronization concerns.
• Redirect – This database should only be redirected into an alternate SQL server instance for database testing or data access using SQL tools.