Dear all,Is it possible to automate the backups of all sites in the farm individually?What I know so far is that stsadm -o backup will backup all site collections. What if I lose a subsite of that site collection? Do I need to restore the whole site collection with all its subsites? I would like to be able to restore just that site.Thanks in advance for the information.regards,Gonalo

The title is Backup. The text says you want to be able to *restore* "just that site".Which ?FAQ sites: (SP 2010) http://wssv4faq.mindsharp.com; (v3) http://wssv3faq.mindsharp.com and (WSS 2.0) http://wssv2faq.mindsharp.com Complete Book Lists (incl. foreign language) on each site.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc287967.aspxshows you how to backup a site or site collection, you down have to do all or nothing, the same for restoring http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288929.aspxCheckout CodePlex for several free tools as well... I like SharePoint Sushi (free) but dig around and see what you like, TEST them in another non-prod lab 1st. http://www.codeplex.com/site/search?projectSearchText=sharepoint%20backupKris Wagner, MCITP, MCTS Twitter @sharepointkris Blog: http://sharepointkris.com

Dear Kristopher,thanks for your reply and useful links. I will indeed take a look into them (some I did already).Sorry I didn't make myself understood. What happen is that I just come from a SPS2003 (YES) environment and there we had a C# code to go through all the sites and backup them individualy in single files. Once a site admin would manage to destroy his site (and we have those admins) we would just restore that single file. Now what I see so far in MOSS is the same approach but only reaching the site collection level. So all subsites in it are backedup as an atom in one file. Do you guys know of any piece of code that would backup also the subsites?Thanks.Regards,Gonalo

Hi I am not sure about any piece of code that would backup the sub sites individually, but I think you can achieve it by using Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 (DPM). Reference below will help you to get start.Backup and restore a site by using DPM (Office SharePoint Server)http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc770247.aspx You can also use Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007 to create a backup of a SharePoint site or sub site and then recreate that site on the same server or on another server. For detailed steps, please refer to:http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointdesigner/HA100699391033.aspx Best Regards!

Dear Lily,Thanks. Unfortunatly we cannot install DPM on this environment (small Extranet environment). I could do it with SPD but I am looking for an automated solution. I tried Sushi (tip from Kris) which I found it to be a pretty nice tool, but unfortunatly some of the export operations failed (compressing the files that it seam were too big).Thanks anyway for your advice.Regards,Gonalo

DPM is a great product, SPD is a good one but it's a pain sometimes... SO for a free solution you'll have to compromise in some areas but honestly think about a better back up solution... Is there information in this site that if lost could cost more to recover in labor? If so then I'd really look into investing in a Microsoft product, Quest or AvePoint... It all depends on how much you can afford to spend and what you can afford to lose... I've been in enough clients to know they never see the value until they have lost something or have a corrupted db...? Just food for thought. Tools:http://www.codeplex.com/spbackup Read this for script options... http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/18202 Blogs:http://weblogs.asp.net/shahar/archive/2008/02/02/powershell-script-to-backup-sharepoint-site-collection.aspxhttp://blog.henryong.com/2007/02/13/automated-backup-script-for-wssv3moss-2007/ Kris Wagner, MCITP, MCTS Twitter @sharepointkris Blog: http://sharepointkris.com

Thanks Kris and Lily for this.Cheers,Gonalo

Hi Gonçalo, stsadm -o backup/restore provides the ability to backup and restore individual site collections, a subset of a farm (perhaps one Content DB), or the whole farm. If, on the other hand, you are looking to restore a sub-site (not an entire Site Collection), you will most likely either have to write/find code or purchase a third party solution for backing up and restoring items smaller than a Site Collection. While it is possible to use stsadm -o export/import to backup part of a Site Collection, it is important to recognize that this will not be a full fidelity backup. In particular, items such as Content Types, Site Columns, Workflows and others may contained in the Site Collection and unavailable/inconsistent after a site has been "Imported" back in. A tool that backs up items smaller than the Site Collection needs to know how to successfully re-integrate this information into the Site Collection. There are several backup options available (some enterprise-ready, some not) for SharePoint - this is a common complaint from anyone who has administered SharePoint. If you have a current enterprise backup tool provider, odds are that they provide a SharePoint Agent that will integrate into your operation and give you the functionality you seek. Hope this helps, Troy Lanphier

Thanks TroyGonalo