Disaster Recovery and Backup

Thalko · Post by **Thalko** » Thu Feb 17, 2005 3:15 pm

I am looking for a way to backup Vault and any necessary files etc. so as if in an act of God the entire server where Vault resides is lost, that i can sucessfully install vault to a new server and restore it to its prior state, retaining all history, files, users, etc.

Can somebody tell/ refer me to a "Best Practices" as far as what should be backed up regarding Vault. I know there is a SQL Database, and a backup utiilty (backs up to ".sgvbak" files) but is backing these up enought to restore Vault to it prior working state? Are there any physical files that need to be backed up in addition? and if so, is there any automation inside Vault itself to shedule backups?

Thanks,
Tom

Post by **jclausius** » Thu Feb 17, 2005 3:48 pm

Almost everything is exclusively stored in the database.

My recommendation would be to :

1) On a regular basis, make a "verifiable" backup of the sgvault database.
2) Also, you may want to backup Vault's vault.config file, as well as Vault's Shadow Folders web.config

In the case of a catastophe:

a) Rebuild the machine ( or designate a new machine for the Vault server)
b) Install SQL Server ( and service packs )
c) Restore sgvault database
d) Install Vault server
e) Compare Vault's new vault.config and Vault's Shadow Folders web.config against the backup. Merge in any changes to the files.

As for regular backups, standard SQL Server has a built in job scheduler for backing up the database. Also, one can use the built in Windows scheduler to run a SQL BACKUP DATABASE command as well.

Thalko · Post by **Thalko** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 4:15 pm

Just for further clarification, when you are backing up Vault through the Admin Tool, all it is really doing is creating a Sql server backup file? None of the files/ folders mentioned get backed up with it? Is the .sgvbak just a virutal file name that maps to the actual Sql Server backup file?

thx...

Tom

Post by **jclausius** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 4:36 pm

Thalko wrote:Just for further clarification, when you are backing up Vault through the Admin Tool, all it is really doing is creating a Sql server backup file? None of the files/ folders mentioned get backed up with it?

That is correct. A backup in the Admin Tool is merely asking SQL Server to create a backup of the sgvault database.

Thalko wrote: Is the .sgvbak just a virutal file name that maps to the actual Sql Server backup file?

No. The .sgvbak file is the actual SQL Server backup file.