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nackros's avatar
nackros
Level 4
10 years ago

How to best backup SharePoint 2013 with 2008R2 SQL and VMware?

Hi,

My customer´s environment is this:

- One server(2012) with SharePoint 2013 server(only one server in the farm)

- One server(2012) with MS SQL 2008R2(all sharepoint databases are here. this server also handles lots of other databases)

All servers are virtual using VMware.

The Backup Exec 2014 server(2008R2) is a physical standalone machine.

 

I need to backup everything, preferable using VMware Agent with GRT. The plan in to run Full backups of everything once a month, and incrementals daily.

One of the problem I have is that almost every Sharepoint Farm backups fail with the following errer: "Final error: 0xe0000363 - The Backup Exec SQL Agent was not used to create the last full, differential, or log backup of this database. You must use the SQL Agent to run a full backup before you can run a differential backup or transaction log backup."

Ofcourse I only backup with BE, nothin else. I interpret the message above as I do a VMware GRT backup of the database server first, the following backup using Sharepoint agent complains.

 

I would like to know what the best practises is to backup with a scenario like this?

I´m getting confused and suspect that I backup both the sharepoint anvironment and the sql environment twice which is stupid.

Some questions I have in my head are: Should I backup the SQL server using VMware Agent with SQL GRT? Since I want to restore individual databases other that Sharepoint. Or should I backup without GRT and do a backup using the SQL agent and select only the non-sharepoint databases?

And Should I do the same for the SharePoint server or not? Or what about backup the "farm" since that seems to backup databases too?

 

Please help me how I should set this up the best way.

 

Regards,

//Andreas..

 

2014
Agent for Microsoft SharePoint
Agent for Microsoft SQL Server
Agent for VMware Virtual Infrastructure
Agents
Backing Up
Backup and Recovery
Backup Exec
Best Practice
Restore

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  • pkh's avatar
    pkh
    Moderator
    10 years ago

    If ServerA is holding the Sharepoint data, then you can do VM backup between the last Sharepoint incremental backup and the Full Sharepoint backup.  If you do VM backup at any other time, you will get the error message.

    You have to adjust your VM backups so that it does not come between your full Sharepoint backup and your incremental Sharepoint backup.  If you are going to do full Sharepoint backups once a month, then you can only do your VM backups once a month.  This applies to both ServerA and ServerB.

  • nackros's avatar
    nackros
    Level 4
    10 years ago

    Ok, thanks. I think I understand the problem now.

    But since it´s not ok to only backup the server once a month I need to workaround this.

    Would it work if I run the backup for Server A as it is now but skips GRT completely? And set up a new job that only backup the non-sharepoint databases using the SQL agent? that way it would only be the Sharepoint farm that backups the sharepoint databases. Am i correct?

  • pkh's avatar
    pkh
    Moderator
    10 years ago
    No. It will not work. It is not GRT that is the problem. It is the VM backup
  • nackros's avatar
    nackros
    Level 4
    10 years ago

    Ok, but since it´s not ok for me to only do vmbackups once a month, how should I solve this?

    I think I´m back to my original question now. What´s the recemmended best practise when backing up SharePoint 2013 and SQL in a setup as mine?

  • pkh's avatar
    pkh
    Moderator
    10 years ago

    Increase the number of times that you do full Sharepoint  or SQL backup.  Each time you do a VM backup you have to do a full Sharepoint or SQL backup.

  • nackros's avatar
    nackros
    Level 4
    10 years ago

    Well I can´t do that. Full backups on everything once a month, and incrementals 5 times a week is the requirements.

    I can´t believe that BE can´t handle this error. The backups itself seems to work for the most part, so this error message about "BE was not used for the last fullbackup.." is just a crappy bug. I don´t care if a different agent was used. It´s still BE2014 that does all backups. Can I suppress this error message somehow?

     

    This error was present in BE2012 aswell and I hoped it would be fixed in 2014.. 2014 fixed lots of other 2012 issues, but not this.

     

  • pkh's avatar
    pkh
    Moderator
    10 years ago
    I don't think this will be fixed because it is a SQL thing, not BE
  • nackros's avatar
    nackros
    Level 4
    10 years ago

    Not the part when this error message plops up ofcourse. So I should be able to suppress this error message somehow? Or is that not possible? All backups and restores work. and since your solution is worse than mine this might be a workaround.

  • pkh's avatar
    pkh
    Moderator
    10 years ago
    No. The error message cannot be suppressed