Carbonite Support > Microsoft SharePoint Backup

Microsoft SharePoint Backup

  • This article is for Windows only

Summary:

Carbonite Safe Server Backup (CSSB) supports back up of Microsoft SharePoint in standalone and single-server farm configuration. Backups of multi-server SharePoint farm configurations are not supported.

CSSB performs full and differential backups of the SharePoint data based on the modification time. Carbonite Safe Server Backup does not support transaction log based backup.

SharePoint backup of individual objects such as Site collection, Web site, List/Document library, Document library folder, Document library file, List item, Version, is not supported. Therefore files such as the SharePoint installation directory, IIS metabase information, Website application pool directory, require a separate backup set configuration for backup.

Files, documents, the folders that contain them, and the Sharepoint installation directory itself should be backed up as part of a separate File System backup. IIS metabase information, ports, host header, authentication, and other such configuration data is included as part of a System State backup.

Carbonite Safe Server Backup currently supports only single-server farm (standalone) configuration. This mean the front-end server and the database server must reside on the same machine.

Solution:

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How to Perform a Microsoft SharePoint Backup

To configure Microsoft SharePoint server backups, create a new backup set and choose SharePoint from the list of backup types. CSSB backs up SharePoint data that is stored in the SQL database and application web site files, such as:

  • Configuration and Admin databases
  • Content and configuration data for Web Applications (Example: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers\14.0\Data\Office Server\Applications)
  • Any third-party databases that are registered with SharePoint
  • Shared services databases in SharePoint
  • Office Search and Help Search index files
Requirements for Backing Up Microsoft SharePoint
  • The Volume Shadow Copy Service must be enabled. Although the Volume Shadow Service is enabled by default, it may have been turned off after Windows installation. Please refer to the Other Requirements section of the System Requirements Knowledge Base article.
  • The SQL VSS Writer service must be running at the time of backup and recovery. CSSB will automatically start the SQL VSS Writer service.
  • The Windows SharePoint Services VSS Writer service will be registered and started automatically by CSSB.
  • The SharePoint VSS writer depends on other VSS writers such as OSearch and SPSearch. These writers must be enabled and set to automatic for SharePoint backups to function.
    • For SharePoint 2010
      SPSearch4 VSS Writer: Enable by starting the SharePoint Foundation Search V4 service.
      OSearch14 VSS Writer: Enable by starting the SharePoint Server Search 14 service.
    • For SharePoint 2007
      OSearch VSS Writer: Enable by starting the Office SharePoint Server Search service.
      SPSearch VSS Writer: Enable by starting the Windows SharePoint Services Search service.
  • Windows SharePoint Services VSS Writer service must run under the admin app pool account, which is the Network Service account in a basic installation of Windows SharePoint Services.
Special Requirement for WSS 3.0

The default installation of Windows SharePoint Services 3 instances will use the Windows Internal Database (MICROSOFT##SSEE), which is run under the Network Service system account. In such a case, the Network Service account must have Full Control permissions to the Carbonite Safe Server Backup misc directory.

By default, the misc directory is located here:

  • For Windows Server 2003: C:\Program Files\Carbonite\Carbonite Server Backup\misc\
  • For Windows Server 2008 and 2012: C:\ProgramData\Carbonite\Carbonite Safe Server Backup\misc\ or C:\ProgramData\Carbonite\Carbonite Server Backup\misc\
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