Backup and Restore

I recently spent time on Backup and Restore on sharepoint 2007.I tried different option to take backup and resotre the sharepoint site.Each and every method has its own advantages and disadvantages.

There are three ways to take backup and restore.

1.Using web interface of sharepoint administration

2.using stsadm.exe

3.Take the sql content database backup and restore the same the content db and add this db at the site collection.

WebInterface.

This is one of the easiest method to take backup and restore too.

Steps to take Backup using Sharepoint central administration tool.

1.Go to sharepoint central administraion from start - Programs - > Sharepoint Central Administraion.

2.One the page is opened , Click on operation from left side navigation menu.

3.Click the "Perform Backup " from the menu Backup and Restore.

4.once you click, sharepoint takes you to another webpage, it shows all the webapplication to take the backup.

5.Select the webapplication to takeup backup.

6.Click the link "Continue to backup options"

7.System takes you to another screen , where we need to give the name of the backup file and where to store this backup file.

8.Click ok to take backup.

This creates a timer job in sharepoint.you can see this job under sharepoint timer jobs definition under "Global Configuration".

2.Backup using stsadm.

stsadm.exe is under "\program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server extenstion\12\bin.

the Syntax to take the backup

stsadm.exe -o backup -url "the webapplication url/site collection url" -filename "filename.bak"

to get the help for backup options

stsadm.exe -help backup

Third method is easy, take the content database backup as how we do take the backup from sql server.this is sql server backup procedure.