Some organizations go one step further…they might want to be able to restore an accidentally deleted item

without restoring the entire Content Database, so they decide to go with a 3^rd party tool that provides the ability to restore items directly from SQL backups. What does this third option get you? Well, first off, it gives you granular restore capabilities, which is key for establishing and meeting aggressive SLA’s for SharePoint content recovery. But, (and this is a big “but”), you are still only backing up your Content Databases…and that’s only one of the “above the line” elements in our nifty graphic. All that other stuff…the 12-Hive, the Global Assembly Cache, the Index and Search Databases, the SSO and SSP...not backed up at all. Should you experience a SharePoint platform failure (due to natural disaster, corruption, or some other dreadful event), you’ll end up having to manually restore all of these other “above the line” elements manually. This is a time-consuming, tedious, and error-prone task. (Believe me, I know from experience.)

If you think this level of protection is enough – well I say “go for it”. But protect yourself, and be sure to adjust your SLA’s to account for the time it will take you to get the platform back online in case of failure. (In fact, with AvePoint’s new free SQL Restore Controller tool, you can get this “item-level restores from SQL backups” capability free of charge. They’re giving it away free, so there you go.)

Another key aspect of developing a smart SharePoint data protection plan is to decide if granularity of backups is important to you. There are two key questions to ask here: (#1) Do I have some SharePoint datasets that should be backed up more aggressively than others? (For example, do I have a particular site that is full of important finance and invoicing information that is constantly being updated, so needs to be backed up every hour, say, and then have a human resources site that stores vacation policies that might only need to be backed up once each week?). If you answered yes to question #1, then the next question to ask is: (#2) Is it realistic to perform an entire SQL Server backup every hour? (And just as important…do I have the system and storage resources to pull that off?) These questions highlight why it is often quite necessary that organizations have the ability to granularly schedule and execute backups of different datasets residing in SharePoint, according to their business-importance. To truly leverage SharePoint as a business-productivity tool and digital-asset repository, you need to establish SLA’s that are appropriate to the various types of content SharePoint is storing. To do this efficiently, you really need to have granular dexterity on the “backup” side of the equation, and not just the “restore” side.

So, if SharePoint is a mission-critical tool for your organization, and you simply can’t afford to risk hours or days of downtime rebuilding your platform manually, and need to aggressively protect you valuable data while optimizing resources…then SQL backups are not the way to go. You should get a more robust solution.

Shane Young – SharePoint MVP and Founder of SharePoint911

Shane has over 12 years experience architecting and administering large-scale server farms using Microsoft enterprise technologies. For the past three years, he has been working exclusively with SharePoint Products and Technologies as a consultant and trainer. Shane has been recognized by Microsoft as an authority on SharePoint and is among an elite group of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 MVP’s. He has architected SharePoint solutions for clients ranging from 20 to 25,000 users. Shane is a renowned speaker at national and international SharePoint conferences. He is also the author of The Ted Pattison Group’s course SPA401: Professional SharePoint Server 2007 Administration. Shane also maintains a popular SharePoint Admin blog.

AvePoint releases DocAve 5.2.1, delivering powerful enhancements to the award-winning platform

AvePoint was proud to announce the July 1, 2009 release of DocAve 5.2.1. Building on the award-winning DocAve v5 platform, this latest release adds some exciting new features, including:

• The FREE DocAve SQL Restore Controller module, enabling item-level recovery from SQL and DPM backups 
• Full backup, recovery, and delivery support for Nintex Workflows and SharePoint Designer Definitions
• DocAve Report Center enhancements, including expanded graphical data trending and analyses
• Platform-wide Japanese language support

To download your free SQL Restore Controller, and receive a free, fully-enabled 30-day trial of the DocAve Software Platform, click here