Sharepoint-Farmbackup ... truncate T-Logs

[soulseeker]

Hi there,

My mediaserver is running BE 2012 SP4 and we use a sharepoint farm with sharepoint 2007 on windows server 2003 and SQL 2012 on windows server 2012. Last week I had an issue with the farm backup (it stopped working) and so I recreated the job and had so bind the service account to the backup exec services again. Now the job works again, but I got a different problem now.

I backup both servers separately and also use a farm backup job (full and incremental). But I got an issue on the database-server, where the sharepoint-databases are stored. I want the databases to run in full recovery mode and because I configured incremental jobs, the T-Logs should be deleted regulary. But they don't, they grow larger and larger. 

1. question - should I just run the farm backup and disable backing up sharepoint ressources on the webserver and backing up the sql-server instance for sharepoint? 

2. Why does neither the incremental farm backup nor the sql-server backup truncate my t-logs? 

3. I added the farm by using add - microsoft sharepoint - serverfarm and using the wizard. But BE keeps adding two other farms with no jobs configured. How can I prevent that?

Thanks

Marcel

[lmosla]

Hi,

refer to this document for questions 1 and 2    http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH187768  

Thanks,

also for 3 after adding the farm did you follow these steps:

In the Web server name field, type the name of a Web server that belongs to the farm you want to add.

In the Server farm name field, type a name for the farm or use the default name. The name you type here will display under the Microsoft SharePoint Server Farms node. Backup Exec lists the names of discovered Web servers in parentheses after the server farm name in the Selection tree.

The following characters cannot be used in farm names: ' ~ ^ * ( ) { } \ ; : ' " , < > / ?

Click OK.   (from: http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO60985)

[pkh · Accepted solution]

You should set the component SQL databases of the Sharepoint farm to simple recovery mode.  There is no point in maintaining logs because you would not be able to do point-in-time restores of the component databases and get back a logically consistent Sharepoint farm.  If it is possible to backup and restore the component databases and still get back a logically consistent Sharepoint farm, then there would be no need for the Sharepoint agent.  

You should not backup the component databases separately.  You should always use the Sharepoint agent to backup your Sharepoint farm.

See my blog below for a fuller explanation.

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/de/blogs/can-i-backup-sap-database-sql-or-oracle-agent

That said, if you need to truncate the transaction logs, see my article below on how to set up the job.

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/how-backup-sql-logs-and-truncate-them-be-2012

[soulseeker]

Thank you guys ... so I guess I also don't need to backup the sharepoint ressources on the webserver, because this is also done by the farm backup?

[VJware]

That's right. Do have a look @ the best practices too (especially points 3 & 5) - http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=HOWTO74431

[soulseeker]

Great, thanks again!