Restoring SharePoint Using SharePoint Central Administration

Backups done using the Central Administration tool generate the XML Manifest and files with .BAK extensions. In case of a restore situation, both XML Manifest and files with .BAK extensions will be required. SharePoint administrators can restore these backups onto the same environment or on entirely new environment; for example, User Acceptance Test (UAT) environment or Development environment.

Similarly, in case of a catastrophic failure, hardware, or the entire farm, SharePoint administrators can rebuild the environment and then restore the SharePoint 2010 farm.

Note

Only site collections can be recovered from a site collection backup.

Restore Farm Configuration Using Central Administration

Perform the following steps to restore farm configuration and other components using SharePoint Central Administration:

1.	Open the SharePoint Central Administration site on a SharePoint Server (Start, All Programs, Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products, SharePoint 2010 Central Administration).
2.	Select Backup and Restore in Quick Launch.
3.	Under the Farm Backup and Restore section, select Restore from a Backup.
4.	On the Backup and Restore History page, enter the Backup Directory Location.
5.	Select the Farm Component that you want to restore, as shown in Figure 10.10, and click Next. Figure 1. Restoring a SharePoint farm using SharePoint Central Administration.
6.	It takes few minutes before the Select Component to Restore page displays. On this page, select the SharePoint component to restore, as shown in Figure 2, and then click Next. Figure 2. Selecting components to restore.
7.	On the Select Restore Options page, select New Configuration to restore a farm with different computer names, web application names, or database servers, or select Same Configuration to restore a farm with the same computer names, web application names, and database servers, as shown in Figure 3. Click Start Restore to begin the restore process. Figure 3. Finalizing settings for a farm restore.

Recovering Data from an Unattached Content Database

SharePoint 2010 has the capability to restore content from an unattached content database. The content database does not need to be “attached” to a SharePoint farm but does need to be attached to a SQL. To recover data from an unattached content database, perform the following steps:

1.	Open the SharePoint Central Administration site on a SharePoint Server (Start, All Programs, Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products, SharePoint 2010 Central Administration).
2.	Select Backup and Restore in Quick Launch.
3.	Under the Granular Backup section, select Recover Data from an unattached content database.
4.	On the Unattached Content Database Data Recovery page, enter the name of the database server, and then enter the database name to connect to. If you use SQL authentication, provide credentials and select the operation to perform, either Browse Content, Backup Site Collection, or Export a Site or List to select a site collection, as shown in Figure 4. Figure 4. Recovering data from an Unattached Content Database.
5.	On the Browse content page, select the site collection from the drop-down menu. On the site collection dialog page, check the name of the content database and then select the site collection to backup from the unattached content database. Click OK to return to the Browse Content page
6.	The Browse Content page looks like Figure 5. Select Backup Site Collection Operation and click next. Figure 5. Browsing for content to restore in an Unattached Content Database.
7.	On the Site Collection Backup page, enter backup location and the filename ending with extension .bak in the Filename box. Select Overwrite Existing File if you want to overwrite and then click Start Backup, as shown in Figure 6. Figure 6. Extracting content from an Unattached Content Database by backing it up.

After starting the backup, SharePoint 2010 displays the Granular Backup Job Status page. On this page, the granular backup progress can be monitored and displays site collection backup status.

This method is recommended in situations in which a site collection or a list needs to be retrieved from a content database not attached to a SharePoint web application but to a SQL Server instance.

Note

Unattached databases include read-only content databases and SQL Server database snapshots of content databases.

Site collections, Sites, Lists, and Libraries can be restored from an unattached database.