Microsoft Sharepoint Products and Technologies Resource Kit eBook

758 Part IX: Maintaining a Server in Windows SharePoint Services
■ /DMLocalPath. During a backup of the backward-compatible document library,
the backup of the Web Storage System is stored to a local drive. This location will
only hold the document library backup temporarily because the SharePoint Portal
Server Data Backup and Restore utility pulls the backup file out of there and copies
it to the backup file path specified using the /file parameter. If there is not
enough disk space in the default location on the local drive, you can specify a
different local path on the server.
The SPBackup.exe Utility
The SPBackup.exe tool determines which site collections have changed and generates
a batch file that, when run on a server running Windows SharePoint Services,
backs up changed site collections using the Stsadm.exe tool. The batch file created
by SPBackup.exe will not back up SharePoint Portal Server 2003 portal sites. However,
when run on a server running SharePoint Portal Server, SPBackup.exe will generate
a batch file that backs up team sites, personal sites, and workspace sites on the
server. You must install SPBackup.exe to the same folder as Stsadm.exe.
On the Resource Kit CD The SPBackup.exe tool can be found on the
Resource Kit CD.
The SPBackup.exe tool uses the following syntax: Spbackup {-a | -d | -w} [-f
filename]. You can use the –a parameter to generate a file that backs up all modified
site collections. The –d parameter generates a file that backs up all site collections
that have changed in the past day. The –w parameter generates a file that backs up
all site collections that have changed in the past week, and the –f filename parameter
specifies the name of the batch file to create. If this argument is omitted, the batch
file will be named SPBakOut.bat.
SAN Snapshoting
Taking a snapshot of the databases hosted on a SAN (storage area network) will be
supported if all the databases are backed simultaneously. This includes the configuration
database. This is the only scenario where the backing up of a configuration
database is supported. You must restore a snapshot image to the same machine on
which the backup was taken.
Note Except in SAN Snapshoting, backing up the configuration database is
not recommended because the configuration database is not restored during
a restore operation. Instead, it is rebuilt on the fly during the restore operation.