Verify your backups by restoring
them to a test server. Verifying the backup
ensures that you are correctly capturing the
data you need and that the data can be successfully
restored to a server. All too often corrupt
backups are discovered only after a system
failure or file corruption has occurred.
Make an Emergency Repair Disk
(ERD) for each Windows server. You can create
an ERD with NTBackup.
Include the registry in the backup.
Re-create the ERD after every major system
change such as applying service packs and
updating device drivers.
Do not use the ERD to replace regular
backups. An ERD can only fix some system
problems (system files, partition boot sector,
and startup environment).
If you plan to use a third-party
backup tool, make sure the utility can back
up the server's system state. NTBackup can
backup the system state.
Avoid mixing incremental and
differential backups. Mixing incremental and
differential backups could complicate the
restore process.
Use normal plus incremental
backups. Using a normal backup followed by
many small incremental backups requires the
least amount of time and resources. For example,
you could schedule normal backups at 11:00
PM the first Sunday of every month, then schedule
incremental backups at 11:00 PM for all the
other days.
NOTEMaking
incremental backups requires you to restore
all incremental backups during a restore.
Perform database backups, not
file backups, on database servers. Use the
backup tool that comes with your database
manager to perform backups on database servers.
Although you can use NTBackup to perform a
server backup on everything, including the
databases, this type of backup is only suitable
for small databases (less than 100 MB) and
is not scalable. NTBackup includes the whole
database every time. Using the native database
tool to perform the backup gives you more
control.
Mix transaction log backups
with differential backups for database backups.
You should schedule complete backups at long
intervals, differential backups at medium
intervals, and transaction log backups at
short intervals. This enables you to restore
a database more efficiently.
If you must back up the object
store database and the file stores separately,
back up the database portion first. This assumes
that documents are deleted infrequently.
Schedule a backup for after-hours.
For performance and data synchronization reasons,
schedule backups during periods of minimal
activities such as midnight to 5 AM. To synchronize
the schedulers, use the NET
TIME command. Both NTBackup and SQL
Server include the ability to perform scheduled
backups.
Use default file extensions
for backup files. By default, SQL Server uses
.bak as the extension for database backup
files and NTBackup uses .bkf as the extension
for backup files. Although these applications
enable you to use any file extensions, using
the default extensions enables the file filters
to recognize the correct file types in file
selection dialogs.
Do not mix backup sets created
from different applications on a single tape.
Although both NTBackup and SQL Server can
use Microsoft Tape Format (MSTF), their backup
sets don't work well when copied to the same
tape.
Best practices for restoring data
Before restoring a FileNet Process Engine
or other FileNet component, review Windows
Event Viewer to determine the source of the
error. This may help to identify which FileNet
component to restore.
Restore FileNet components to their original
locations. The FileNet components share information,
and the components must be in same the location
after you restore them