Introducing CA ARCserve Backup Agents and Options › Using Agents › Agent for Microsoft SharePoint Server › Agent Backup Options

Agent Backup Options

The Agent for Microsoft SharePoint Server backup options dialog allows you to choose the following methods of database protection:

• Database Complete

  Use full backups to back up your SharePoint Server 2003 database. You can also use full backups to back up all your SharePoint Server 2003 non-database data (such as search indexes).

  Note: For non-database data, the agent supports only complete backups.

• Database Differential

  Backs up database data that has changed since the last complete backup. For example, if you ran a complete backup of your database on Sunday night, you can run a differential backup on Monday night to back up only the data that changed on Monday.

• Transaction Log

  Backs up the Transaction log. Transaction log backups provide the following options:

  • Remove inactive entries from transaction log - Truncates the log files. This is the default option.
  • Do not remove inactive entries from transaction log - Retains inactive log entries after backup. These entries are included in the next Transaction log backup.
  • Back up only the log tail and leave the database in unrecovered mode - Backs up the log and leaves the database data in a restoring state. Use this option to capture activity since the last backup, and take the database offline to restore it.

    Important! Do not use this option when backing up the SharePoint 2003 configuration database. It is not supported. However, you may use this option when backing up other SharePoint 2003 databases.

• Files and FileGroups

  Backs up selected files in a database. Use this option to back up a file or FileGroup when the database size and performance requirements make it impractical to perform a full database backup.

• Files and FileGroups; Differential

Backs up database data changed in selected files since the last file and FileGroup backup. Differential file backups reduce recovery time by reducing the number of transactions from the Transaction log that must be restored. DBCC provides the following options:

• Before Backup

  Checks consistency before the backup of the database.

• After Backup

  Checks consistency after the backup of the database.

• Continue with backup, if DBCC fails

  Performs a database backup even if the consistency check fails.

• After restore

  Performs DBCC after the restore of the database.

• Do not check indexes

  Checks the database for consistency without checking indexes for user-defined tables.

• Check only the physical consistency of the database

  Detects torn pages and common hardware failures. In addition, it checks the integrity of the physical structure of the page and record headers, and the consistency between the page's object ID and index ID.

All error messages that are generated during the DBCC are displayed in the Agent for Microsoft SharePoint Server directory on the machine where the SharePoint Database Agent is installed. The dbasql.log is located in the Backup Agent directory.