I believe you are already aware why we need to take SharePoint backup and in what all cases we may need to perform SharePoint restore for a particular site. However I would like to iterate few cases, which would give you a idea why these processes are so important. Suppose, you want to move a site from one location in a server to another or to an completely different location, you could do so with the help of SharePoint Designer 2007.With SharePoint Designer, we can produce the backup of a site or sub site and later re-create the site on the same server or a different server. During the process of taking the backup of a site and restoring it, three different processes are involved:
- Create the backup of the site to an empty file.
- Create an empty site at the destination.
- Restore the backup site to the destination.
SharePoint Backup: Creating the backup file for the SharePoint site:
While acquiring the backup of a SharePoint site, a Content Migration Package or a .cmp file is created. We can either take the backup of the top-level site or any other sub sites. You would require admin permissions to take the backup. The steps to be followed for taking the backup of a SharePoint site are as follows:
1. Open Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007 as shown in the below screenshot.
2. Go to file menu and select ‘Open site’.
3. A new window titled ‘Open Site’ pops up prompting for the site URL. You may provide the URL of the site whose backup is to be taken against the ‘Site name’ field. Now the site opens up in the designer.
4. Now go to ‘Site’ menu and select ‘Backup Web Site’ from the option ‘Administration’ as shown in the below screenshot.
5. A backup Website dialog box pops up. Check the ‘Include sub sites in archive’ checkbox to include all the sub sites of the current site.
6.While taking the backup of the SharePoint site, it requires some location for storing the temporary backup files. By default, Office SharePoint Designer makes use of the current site to store the backup. If there is very low space available with the current site, you may provide another site by clicking on the ‘Browse’ button. After providing the location for storing temporary backup, you may click ‘OK’.
7. A new window titled ‘File save’ opens. You may provide the desired location in your system where you would like to have your .cmp file.
8. Once you provide the location for saving the .cmp file in your system, you will get a window showing the creation of backup files.
9. Finally when the backup file is created, you will get a message for ‘successful completion’.
10. If you go and check in the location which you had specified for saving the backup file, you would find a .cmp file created. This file could be used to re-create the same site at a different location in the same server or in different server.
SharePoint restore: Need to create an empty site as destination to restore the backup:
Once the backup of the SharePoint site is ready, you will have to create a new site or sub site which is empty. This could be created anywhere as per your requirement. The steps to be followed are as follows:
1.Open a new site in SharePoint designer. Go to File menu and select New -> Website.
2.Now select ‘General’ website and choose the option ‘Empty Website’.
3. You may specify the location of the new website in the field provided either by typing the URL or by clicking on the ‘Browse’ button. Now click on ‘OK’.
4. You will notice that a window showing creation in progress would appear. Once the window disappears, the site would have been created..
Restoring the site backup in the newly created empty site:
1. Open the destination site in SharePoint Designer and go to ‘Site’ -> ‘Administration’ -> ‘Restore Backup’.
2. You will be prompted for the location of the backup file. You may provide the path where the .cmp file is located and click on ‘Open’ button.
3. Upon clicking ‘Open’, you will get a ‘Restore Website’ dialog box.
4. For storing the temporary files in another location, you may click on ‘Advanced’ button and give the URL of that location in the ‘Advanced’ dialog box. If there is enough space in the current site, you may click on ‘OK’.
5. When the restoration is in progress, we can see the temporary files being created in the site if the default settings are not altered.
6. If the site, which you are backing up is too large then process may take long time else it would be done quickly. Thus, with the help of Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007,we can easily move a site from one location to another
Limitations:
With the Backup and restore feature, we can move only personal sites within a portal site collection, not the portal areas or the top level portal itself. Backup and restore feature cannot be used to move a site from a server running Office SharePoint Server 2007 to a server running Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 or vice versa. We can use the STSADM.EXE command to backup, restore or move an Office SharePoint Server 2007 site. For using this, you need to be the admin of that server.
Reference: Microsoft Office Online
Target keywords: SharePoint backup, SharePoint restore, SharePoint site backup, SharePoint site restore, SharePoint Designer 2007
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