SharePoint Server 2010 supports the following primary, built-in recovery options:
Restore from a farm backup that was created by using built-in tools, or restore from the backup of a component taken by using the farm backup system.
Restore from a site collection backup.
Restoring from a farm backup
Items that can be recovered from a farm backup include the following:
Farm
Content and configuration data (default)
The whole server farm is restored. This includes settings from the configuration database, and trusted solution packages.
Configuration-only
Only the configuration data is restored. This overwrites any settings in the farm that have values that are set within the configuration-only backup.
Web applications
Restores Web applications.
Service applications
Restores service applications. Service application recovery can be complex because SharePoint Server 2010 cannot fully reconfigure service application proxies during the restore process. Service application proxies are restored, but are not put in proxy groups. Therefore, they are not associated with any Web applications. For more information about how to restore a Search service application, see Search service application recovery process. For specific information about the operations involved in restoring specific service applications, see Restore a service application
(SharePoint Server 2010).
Content databases
When content databases are restored, the sandboxed solutions associated with the related site collections are also restored.
Restoring as new versus restoring as overwrite
By default, SharePoint Server 2010 recovery restores any object as a new instance of the object, instead of overwriting any existing instances with the same name.
When you restore a farm or object as new, the following objects will not work without adjustments, because all GUIDs for objects are assigned new values:
Farm. When you restore a farm as new, you must do the following:
Re-create alternate access mapping settings. SharePoint Server 2010 recovery only restores the Default zone of the Web application.
Reconfigure settings for any Business Connectivity Services and Managed Metadata service application external sources.
Re-associate service application proxies with proxy groups because service application proxies are not assigned to proxy groups when restored. All Web applications will be associated with the default proxy group. You must associate Web applications with other proxy groups if you want to do that.
Web application.
If the Web application name and URL that you provide match a Web application name and URL that already exist in the farm, SharePoint Server 2010 recovery combines them.
If you do not want to combine Web applications, you must rename the Web application when you restore it as new.
When you restore a Web application as new in the same environment but do not combine Web applications, many other parameters and objects must also be changed. For example, you may have to provide different database file paths and different database names.
Service applications and service application proxies
If you recover a service application and also recover the related service
application proxy, you must associate the service application proxy with a proxy group.
If you recover a service application and do not also recover the related service application proxy, you must re-create the service application proxy.
Note:
You cannot restore a service application as new in the same farm. You can restore a service application as new in another farm.
When you restore an object and overwrite the existing object, no changes are necessary.
Search service application recovery process
The recovery process for the Search service application varies depending on whether you are restoring as new or restoring as overwrite. When you restore as overwrite, no additional steps are necessary.
The restore as new process is as follows:
1. Restore the service application as new, and specify the new farm topology information as you restore.
2. Restore the service application proxy as new. If you did not restore the service application proxy, you must create a new service application proxy and associate it with the Search service application.
3. Associate the service application proxy with the appropriate proxy group and associate the proxy group (if it is not the default proxy group) with the appropriate Web application.
4. For least-privilege deployments, start the Search service and the Search admin query Web service with the appropriate account.
For more information about how to recover the Search service application, see Restore search (SharePoint Server 2010).
Restoring from a site collection backup
Only site collections can be recovered from a site collection backup.
Recovering from an unattached content database
SharePoint Server 2010 provides the ability to connect to, and back up from, a content database that is attached to an instance of SQL Server but is not associated with a local SharePoint Web application. Unattached databases that you can connect to include read- only content databases that have been restored from any supported backup technology and SQL Server database snapshots of content databases.
Recovery is the following two-stage process:
1. Back up or export the object from the unattached content database. 2. Restore or import the output of the prior step into SharePoint Server 2010.
The following items can be backed up or exported from an unattached database by using granular backup and export, and then restored:
Site collection
Back up by using site collection backup, and then recover by using a site collection restore.
Site
Export, and then import.
You can use import to recover content that you backed up from a database configured to use the SQL FILESTREAM RBS provider. The recovered content will be stored by SharePoint Server 2010 using the currently defined storage provider for that content database — that is, if the content database is not set to use RBS, the data will be stored in the content database; if the content database is set to use RBS, the data will be stored in RBS.
Related content
Resource center Business Continuity Management for SharePoint Server 2010
(http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=199235) IT pro content Plan for backup and recovery (SharePoint Server
2010)
Backup and recovery (SharePoint Server 2010)
(http://technet.microsoft.com/library/71abd06e-6730- 442e-b2c1-e3ba9c04d497(Office.14).aspx)
Developer content Data Protection and Recovery