I want to be sure that my expectation of DPM is correct for SharePoint Item Restoration. If I create a restore point a week ago and it includes documents and list items from a site. Those items will contain the Created dates in the past and the Created By and Modified By of the original user.

Now, a week later, if I restore one of those items, it has a Modified date of today and a Modified By of the System.

Is this the expected behavior? It seems that this is not a perfect solution because the item is not the same as it was when it was backed up. From an audit perspective I have lost my audit trail.

Does it restore the versions of items when the item is restored?

Please tell me I have something misconfigured, this is my first stab at working with DPM 2012 and SharePoint 2013. I have not found any definitive installation instructions on TechNet.

I'd love for this to be a solution for my clients.

T

Hi,

DPM simply invokes sharepoint export and import API's to restore items, so it's sharepoint that is doing the restore to the destination.

Be sure to select the option to "Apply the security settings of the recovery point version" - that sometimes makes a difference.

Mike,

Thanks that did make a difference. Though I wonder about the use of the word "sometimes". Is there any documentation on when it does not work?

Is there any reference for when you would restore the document and not the associated library item?

Is there any documentation on why you can only associate one item in a recovery? I see for document libraries that I can pick the document or the item, but not both. When would I choose one or the other?

Is the version history included?

After running through the Restore dialog several times, each time supplying the exact same info, I also wonder if there is a way to supply a "Restore Template" (or simply "Save as Default" so that I don't have to constantly repeat the same procedures (possibly making an incorrect choice) 

Bottom line, has anyone documented what is and, more importantly, what isn't protected beyond the broad statement that "Content IS and Service Apps are not protected". For example, it appears that there may be issues with content under a Managed Path. I can restore content into root sites but have been unsuccessful for any content under a managed path.

I'd love to recommend DPM to clients, but there are too many questions righ

Hi,

<snip>
Bottom line, has anyone documented what is and, more importantly, what isn't protected beyond the broad statement that "Content IS and Service Apps are not protected".
>snip<

Please review this blog, it still applies to latest sharepoint / DPM versions.

http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/archive/2010/05/10/how-to-be-sure-that-your-sharepoint-farm-is-fully-protected.aspx

I will have one of our dpm sharepoint engineers try to help with the other questions. 

Thanks Mike, 

That post is pretty generic for SharePoint 2010 and DPM 2010. I am specifically talking about SharePoint 2013, SQL 2012 and DPM 2012. Considering what is at risk and the competition from 3rd parties like AvePoint, I'd like to know how DPM competes.

I look forward to responses to the specifics above.

M 

**Is there any documentation on when it does not work?

-> I am not aware of any situations where it does not correctly restore the user and time/data appropriately.

**Is there any reference for when you would restore the document and not the associated library item?

-> Im not totally sure what you are asking here.  If you are talking about restoring a document for instance, the restore process just includes selection of the file and then picking the options to use for the restore. 

**Is there any documentation on why you can only associate one item in a recovery? I see for document libraries that I can pick the document or the item, but not both. When would I choose one or the other?

-> Since we are leveraging the SharePoint API for doing the restore, the limitation is likely in there.  Unfortunately, the only option in this case is to restore each file one at a time.  The good news is that you should hopefully be leveraging an optimized ILR and that means the process is much faster.  This is something that will happen if it is able to, so there are no settings to tweak or manage for this.

-> If you want to check to see if you are using ILR, you can look at the jobs immediately after doing a restore.  If you see 3 straight SharePoint Import/Export entries, then it is optimized.  If you see one disk restore and then two SharePoint Import/Export entries, then it is using an unoptimized ILR process.

**Is the version history included?

-> Yes, when restoring a file with SharePoint ILR, it will also restore all previous versions and version history with associated user names.

**After running through the Restore dialog several times, each time supplying the exact same info, I also wonder if there is a way to supply a "Restore Template" (or simply "Save as Default" so that I don't have to constantly repeat the same procedures (possibly making an incorrect choice)

-> The only way to do something like this would be to create a script in PowerShell that would do what you want.  I dont have anything like this created already and havent played with anything like it.

**Bottom line, has anyone documented what is and, more importantly, what isn't protected beyond the broad statement that "Content IS and Service Apps are not protected". For example, it appears that there may be issues with content under a Managed Path. I can restore content into root sites but have been unsuccessful for any content under a managed path.

-> Im not familiar with Managed Path, so I cant talk to that without more knowledge on it.  I can tell you that there are some limitations around protecting a farm with a SQL Always On back end and SQL filestreams that are not local.  Outside of that, I would have to see what is going on in order to better address the question.

I hope this helps some.

Thanks Chris!

Clarification so you may complete this thread.

**Is there any documentation on when it does not work?

-> I am not aware of any situations where it does not correctly restore the user and time/data appropriately.

I discovered this right away buy not selecting the correct restore option. (Apply the security settings of the recovery point version)

**Is there any reference for when you would restore the document and not the associated library item?

-> Im not totally sure what you are asking here.  If you are talking about restoring a document for instance, the restore process just includes selection of the file and then picking the options to use for the restore. 

In the list of restorable items there is a pair available, one is the document and the other is the library item. It has to do with how DPM is displaying the SharePoint content. Very confusing.

**Bottom line, has anyone documented what is and, more importantly, what isn't protected beyond the broad statement that "Content IS and Service Apps are not protected". For example, it appears that there may be issues with content under a Managed Path. I can restore content into root sites but have been unsuccessful for any content under a managed path.

-> Im not familiar with Managed Path, so I cant talk to that without more knowledge on it.

This is disconcerting. Managed Paths are everything in SharePoint. In order to create 1000s of sites under a URL the "Sites" managed path is presented so I can create sites under "http://intranet/sites/SharePoint/" and "http://intranet/sites/SQL" and "http://intranet/sites/HR", etc. Sites is the out of the box path, for the My Site Host it's "personal" though as an admin I can create different paths.

I may have 100s or 1000s of sites under the "sites" managed path. So far I have been unable to restore any content to these sites. I really hope it's something I am doing wrong. But others have raised this issue and I have yet to see any resolution.

Bump, any word on the restoration to a managed path? I have searched around and seen others report the issue but I have not seen a resolution. 

I have been unable to get any content to restore to Sites or Personal managed paths.

Thanks!

M