SharePoint Full and Differential Backup Using Central Admin and PowerShell

This is very important article about Backup and restore SharePoint 2013 or 2016.  The SharePoint 2013 backup structure and recovery processes include farm backup and recovery, Full backup and recovery, and recovery from an unattached content database which we have backup earlier also we can do restore content DB from different server in case we want to do migrate impacted server to new one. We can complete backup and recovery operations by using the SharePoint Central Administration website or Windows PowerShell cmdlets.

Note that some built-in backup and recovery tools may not encounter all the necessities or requirement of your organization. You may need some third party tool to do the same.

I will sharing you some of link for third party who involved with Microsoft to handle some issue which cannot done by in built option.

Below are the SharePoint backup and recovery scenarios:

• Backing up and recovering data supports many business situations, including below are the following:

Recovering accidentally deleted content that is not protected by the recycle bin or versioning.

• Moving data between installations as part of a hardware or software upgrade.
• Recovering from an unexpected failure.
• Support in case of large scale enterprise solution deployed like banking sector, share market etc.

Backup architecture in SharePoint 2013 or 2016:

SharePoint 2013/2016 provides two backup systems: farm (entire DB exist in farm) and granular.

• Farm Backup:  When you want to back up everything in the farm in one backup.
• Granular backup is used for backing up a specific SharePoint entity, like a site collection, web or a list.

Farm Backup scenario:

The above shown scenario supports both full and differential backups. Full backups create a new backup of the complete system and its mandate for to take if we are going to take first time backup of any farm, Differential backups create a backup of all changes that are stored in databases since the last full backup. With the help of differential backup we can avoid backup running time reduce the utilization of server Resources instead of taking full backup always differential backup has solve this issue with this we can last changes backup since the last full backup is take place.

In the farm based backup we can take entire content db, web Application, services, Configuration database in one time itself. As we know Farm is highest level object where all those above is configured.

Granular backup: with the help of granular backup system, we can back up a site collection or export a site or list exist in the farm exist in the farm. Granular backup technology permits us to restoring only parts of a particular dataset selected by some criteria, instead of a full restoration

So now we will see how to take full backup and differential backup in SharePoint server 2013 and 2016 in this article:

As we know we can take the backup in two difference way called from central admin and using PowerShell.

I am going start and describe both way and will have step by step screen shot also:

Let’s start with SharePoint Central Administration

Make sure before using SharePoint Central Administration, first we should verify that the user that have Farm Administrators SharePoint group membership.

• Start SharePoint 2013 Central Administration with administrator rights
• Once SP CA is started in browser click on Backup and Restore section from left side of the page.
• Here select perform a backup select SharePoint content database that we want to back up Next.

• Backup Type section Select Full as we mentioned if first time we are going to take back we need select full backup of farm once this will be done then we can go ahead select Differential for the same.
• Now here on the next screen page select the services or farm or other available backup and click on next.

• Once we will come down the page we will get option to click on next, after next option we will get option called step 2 to select backup options available on the SharePoint.
• Following option will be available here:

• Redlines: where we can check the running status of backup and required services.
• Backup component: this is top level item we have chosen in backup. We can change option from here by clicking on change following component.
• Backup Type: here we need to define which backup we are going to take either it will full or differential
• Backup only configuration setting: We can select the option which will be available from default setting
• Next and last will backup location: assigned the backup location where we want to take back up the file.

See below screen shot with highlighted options described above:

We can notice above on the backup and location about saying the estimated disk space requirement is mentioned.

• Once all done click on start backup.

Same backup we can done with SQL Server tools:  Make sure the user who is going to perform backup is having db_backupoprator or administrator rights

• Open SQL Server Management Studio any of version installed for your SQL server

• Once open connect to the database server, Object Explore and expand Databases.

• Right-click the database that you want to back up and select Tasks then click Back Up.

• Here we will be getting many option on the SQL server backup wizard, Name of database will be showing, Backup type under the type: full backup, Differential backup and transaction Log backup will be showing here.
• Move to the next we need to select path where want to take backup for the database and Name of database backup file, date of backup expiry set as 0 means never
• On the left side of screen we will getting options page here we can select more about backup.

• Once all don’t click on ok and wait till progress will get complete.
• Now we can go back to destination backup folder and can see on backup file has been added with .bak.

Full Back or Differential up Using SharePoint Management shell:

We should choose these backup options as per your requirements like if we are performing command-line administrative tasks then you should use Windows PowerShell.  With the help of PowerShell we can do anything means anything in the SharePoint this most powerful application available by Microsoft which is reducing a lot of task for SP administrator.

Now I am going to show you how to run SharePoint Management Power shell command to take full Back up or Differential of SharePoint farm.

Below is the command syntax for the same also showing your how to run and what will be the result at the end?

Backup-SPFarm -BackupMethod Full -Directory \\MyServer\SPBackups

If we are going to run differential backup we need to run below PowerShell command:

Backup-SPFarm -BackupMethod Differential -Directory \\MyServer\SPBackups -Item <ContentDatabaseName> [-Verbose]

Result would be like:

• Open SharePoint Management shell command prompt with administrator rights and run the above syntax and hit enter:

• Once it done successfully we can the result would be on defined path:

Next Article we will discussing about another Backup option and will have demo work also.