Backup / restore of Microsoft SharePoint Server farm configuration (DS-Recovery Tools)
Creation Date: January 21, 2013
Revision Date: March 27, 2018
Product: DS‑Client (Windows) with DS-MLR Service (DS-Recovery Tools)
Summary
DS-Client supports backup and restore of the Farm Configuration for Microsoft SharePoint Server (Standalone Farm or Multi-Server Farm).
How to backup
The DS-Client displays the Farm Configuration backup item for Microsoft SharePoint Servers if they are in that configuration.
1.On the Sets menu, click New Backup Set.
2.In the New Backup Set Wizard dialog box appears.
3.Select Microsoft SharePoint Server. (This is the one using the DS-Recovery Tools service, not the VSS-aware backup set type.)
4.Browse and select the Microsoft SharePoint Server you want to backup.
5.On the Shares & Directories List page, select Farm Configuration and add it to the backup items selection.
6.Finish the wizard and perform a backup.
Supported farm configuration backup / restore items
The Farm Configuration backup item includes the following components that can be backed up and restored. All these settings can be verified using the SharePoint Central Administration application.
InfoPath Forms Services:
•Settings
•Data Connections
•Form Templates
•Exempt User Agents
•SharePoint Server State Service
Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Web Application
SPUserCodeV4
NOTE: These can be verified by using PowerShell commands, by first getting the values before performing a backup, then changing those values by using PowerShell, then performing a restore and then checking the values again.
•AbnormalProcessTerminationCount
•CPUExecutionTime
•CriticalExceptionCount
•IdlePercentProcessorTime
•InvocationCount
•PercentProcessorTime
•ProcessCPUCycles
•ProcessHandleCount
•ProcessIOBytes
•ProcessThreadCount
•ProcessVirtualBytes
•SharePointDatabaseQueryCount
•SharePointDatabaseQueryTime
•UnhandledExceptionCount
•UnresponsiveprocessCount
Microsoft SharePoint Server Diagnostics Service
Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services Diagnostics Service
Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Diagnostics Service
What is not backed up in the farm configuration
Any configuration data that is tied to individual Web applications, content databases, site collections and everything under (contained within) them are not considered as part of a farm configuration.
Settings that are tied to server names or a specific SharePoint farm topology are also not backed up in the Farm Configuration.
Restore details
You can have many Microsoft SharePoint Servers in a single Active Directory domain, but they cannot have the same machine name or use the same URL.
A single server cannot have two SharePoint installations on that same server and cannot have more than one farm.
If you provide the same server name during restore (as was backed up), the configuration details will be restored to the same farm. In case of a multi server farm (multiple servers playing different roles within a SharePoint farm), you must specify the server name that hosts the Central Administration application for the farm.
If you want to restore a SharePoint Farm Configuration to an alternate location, the target server must be in the same domain as the backup source.
Restore limitations
You can only restore the “Farm Configuration” to same version of SharePoint. You can only restore to similar types of farms (e.g. single-server farm to single-server farm or multi-server farm to multi-server farm).
