Microsoft Sharepoint Products and Technologies Resource Kit eBook

Chapter 28: Disaster Recovery in SharePoint Products and Technologies 771
Backing Up and Restoring Search Servers
Search servers typically do not need the same level of protection as database servers
or front-end Web servers because searching can be set up to be redundant within
medium and large server farms. In a medium server farm, the front-end Web servers
also provide search services for the server farm; in a large server farm, two
dedicated search servers provide search services. In either solution, if one of the
search servers becomes unavailable, the redundant search server continues to provide
search services until the failed server is recovered. If a search index contains
corrupted data, forcing propagation of the content indexes usually overwrites the
corrupted data.
To recover a search server
If you want to recover a failed search server:
1. Remove the failed server from the server farm topology.
Warning Removing a search server using the topology manager causes all
content indexes to be deleted from the search server.
2. Restore the server by using your standard image, or install SharePoint Portal
Server on a newly built server.
3. After the server is recovered, connect it to the existing configuration database
for the server farm and add it to the server farm topology and component
assignments as a search server.
4. In a medium server farm, configure the search server as a front-end Web
server.
5. Force propagation of the content indexes to the restored search server to
immediately update the indexes.
Backing Up and Restoring Index Management Servers
The SharePoint Portal Server Data Backup and Restore utility can be used to back up
and restore content indexes on the index management servers. In the case of index
management servers, redundancy is less relevant compared to other types of servers.
In the event of a failure, this type of server has little immediate impact on the
availability of the solution. However, the server does require attention because new
content is not indexed or searchable until the index management server has been
recovered. Searching continues to be available, but the search indexes become out
of date as new content is added.