How to protect & recover SharePoint Data

In today's world SharePoint server has become a very popular enterprise application which helps for innovative solution to the classic business problem of improving collaboration, coordination, and sharing resources among teams to get things done on time and within budget. Lots of projects & valuable data stored on SharePoint platform rises, backup and recovery becomes critical and it proves to be a challenge for administrators.

Backup and restore solution options for Office SharePoint Server 2007:

Data Recovery & Protection Tools;

Microsoft System Centre Data Protection Manager

SharePoint Farm Backup & Recovery

Stsadm site collection backup and recovery

SharePoint Recycle Bins

SharePoint versioning

Stsadm import and export

Third Party SharePoint Recovery Tools

Key Benefits of Data Protection Manager (DPM):

• Easy browse and restore of individual sites, documents, lists, ASPX pages, templates, contacts and entire SharePoint databases and systems
• Restore the entire configuration of SharePoint farm including the configuration database,
• Restore a single content database to the SharePoint farm.

Key Benefits of SharePoint Farm Backup & Recovery:

• You can use SharePoint Central Administration or Stsadm command-line tool to backup & recover a Farm.
• Before using this method, you should back up the server farm, Web applications, and any or all of the content databases in your server farm.
• To perform this method to backup and recovery, you must still be a member of the admin group on a computer on which Office SharePoint Server 2007 is installed.
• Restoring from one version of SharePoint to a different version is not supported
• At the same time, you cannot perform more than one recovery from the same backup.

Stsadm site collection backup and recovery:

• Don't make any changes to the site collection during the backup process; otherwise the backup can become corrupted.
• Backing up large site collections can take a long time.
• You should lock the site collection before you use Stsadm site collection backup.
• Site collection backups are extremely processor - and memory-intensive. Do not use the Stsadm backup operation for site collections larger than 15 gigabytes (GB).

For site collection backup: stsadm -o backup
For site collection restore: stsadm -o restore

Key Benefits of SharePoint RecyleBin: There is two types of recycle bin: first-stage Recycle Bin & second-stage Recycle Bin.

• The Recycle Bins collect deleted documents and list items such as documents, document versions, document libraries, picture libraries, announcements, calendars, links, tasks, folders, pages, team discussions.
• When a list item is deleted, any attachments to the item are also deleted  and can be restored from the Recycle Bin.
• Items cannot be opened or viewed while in the Recycle Bin. An item must first be restored before it can be opened or viewed just like in windows.
• By default, items in both Recycle Bins are automatically deleted after a specified time period (the default setting is 30 days). If the second-stage Recycle Bin reaches its size limit, the oldest items are also automatically deleted.
• Site and site collection deletion is not managed through the Recycle Bins.   
• Items move from the first-stage Recycle Bin to the second-stage Recycle  Bin only when the first-stage Recycle Bin is emptied.
• The Recycle Bins can contain multiple copies of a document with the same file name and source. These documents cannot be recovered over an existing copy of a document.
• The Recycle Bins cannot be used to recover previous versions.

Key benefits of SharePoint Versioning:

• It allows the document library to keep multiple copies of the same document.
• In the event of an unwanted change, or a document corruption, the previous version can easily be restored by the end user.
• You turn on versioning at the library or list level. Items and files can be versioned.
• Versioning for standard lists is limited to major versions only.
• Accidental overwrites of documents---you must use versioning.

Key benefits of Stsadm export and import operations:

• To archive and re-insert a site or subsite, use export & import operations.
• Although using the export operation saves data for you, it does not produce a full-fidelity backup.
• The export operation can include content and security settings only.
• Export operation cannot include customizations and settings.
• The account that you will use to run the Stsadm command-line tool must be a member of the Admin group on the local computer.

Key benefits of  SharePoint Recovery Tools:

• SharePoint Recovery Tools used to repair corrupt SharePoint database & SharePoint sites.
• These software works in all SharePoint corruption scenarios.
• It also attaches repaired MDF files to SharePoint Server.
• Works even all above methods unable to repair SharePoint database.
• Saves the summary of recovery process in a log file.
• Shows the preview of repaired database in demo version.