Restoring the Microsoft SharePoint Application or its Individual Components

Take the following steps to restore the Microsoft SharePoint application or individual components in it:

  1. Click the Block option from under the Restore tab. The Restore window appears, with SOURCES displayed in the left pane and DESTINATIONS in the right pane.

  2. In the SOURCES pane, reveal the set of available SharePoint application backup instances by expanding the SharePoint_Group, expanding the virtual node, then expanding the SharePoint application. The SharePoint_Group virtual node group may contain several SharePoint virtual node entities. You will see one virtual node for each SharePoint application.

Note. Components of a SharePoint application are not displayed as part of a given physical node. SharePoint application components only appear under a virtual node.

  1. Select the items that you want to restore. While you are selecting items for restore, remember the following:

    • You can only restore a full SharePoint application to its original location.

    • There is no need to run multiple restore jobs to restore multiple components to their original locations.

    • If you select multiple components for restore, the Original Location is the default selected restore destination, and each component will be restored to its original location.

    • If your intention is to restore a content database component to a new location, you can select a new location for that content database, but perform that restore independently; you cannot combine this action with the restore of a full application.

    • If you need more information about a backup instance, you can view a read-only list of SharePoint servers (physical nodes) that are part of an application backup, as well as which physical nodes are protected by this backup instance. See More About a Backup Instance: Viewing SharePoint Servers.

  2. Specify any additional job options using the Task Panel:

  3. After making the required Source and Destination selections, save the job by clicking Save Restore Job on the task pane.

  4. Enter information about the restore job in the dialog box and save the job.

  5. To run the job, click the Run Restore Job or the Run and Monitor Restore Job option. If you do not save the job, prompts for a save before allowing the job to run.

Note. The Run and Monitor Restore Job lets you monitor the job progress in a separate window.

  1. If the schedule is set, the system will insert the job into the scheduler and automatically execute it.

Note. If the restore job fails with a Failure to create web application message, you can recreate that web application by selecting the option Delete and Create a Web Application.

More About a Backup Instance: Viewing SharePoint Servers

To view a read-only list of SharePoint servers (physical nodes) that are part of an application backup, as well as which physical nodes are protected by this backup instance, you can open a dialog box that will display the list of physical nodes for this SharePoint application/farm.

To Open the SharePoint Servers Window in a Restore Session:

  1. Right-click the backup that appears under the SharePoint application icon and select the SharePoint Servers menu option.

  2. The SharePoint Servers window appears. In a restore session, you can use this window to view a read-only list of SharePoint servers that are backed up by a particular backup job instance.

    This window displays information about each physical node that is part of the SharePoint farm at the time of the backup. See “About the SharePoint Servers Window” for more information about the content and format of this window.

    The check box that appears at the start of each line indicates if the backup has protected that server, in partial, or in full. In a restore session, the information displayed in this SharePoint Servers window is read-only. You cannot make any selections in this SharePoint Servers window.

  3. To close the SharePoint Servers dialog box, click OK.

The SharePoint-Only Job Destination Option: Create SharePoint Web Application

In addition to the standard job options offered in the task panel, a SharePoint application restore has its own special job destination option that lets you configure the restore job to create the web application as part of the restore. You can use the Create SharePoint Web Application option with one of three available values:

Do not Create Web Application

Restore the content database, but take no other action. This value is the default setting for this job option.

Create Web Application

If you select this option, after restoring the content database, DPX will create a web application that uses the original web application name and port number. If the local SharePoint library on the control node supports it, DPX will try to provision this web application globally.

Note. To support global provisioning, DPX requires the installation of WSS 3.0 SP1 (or later) and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Infrastructure update, dated July 15, 2008.

The application pool for this web application will be selected by SharePoint. After a restore, check the newly created web application using the central administration website. You may have to reconfigure the application pool and change other settings.

Note. If you decide to create a new web application, and you have created the SharePoint content database restore at a new location, this job option will create a new web application at the new location. (If you need to review relevant information about the previous content database, you can refer to its configuration data, as recorded in its related backup job log.)

If you have more than one content database for the same web application, select all of them together, if you want to create the web application with all of those databases for restore.

The create web application portion of the restore job will fail if a web application with the same settings exists in the farm.

Note. For a SharePoint 2013 database on SQL Server 2012, a listener must be configured in the availability group. See SharePoint Installation and Configuration Requirements.

Delete and Create Web Application

Delete the existing web application before creating the web application.

Note. For users receiving the message Failure to create web application, you can recreate that web application by selecting this option.

SQL Availability Group Listener Name

If you restore a SharePoint database to a SQL Availability Group, enter the availability group listener name.

Note. This option is only available when Create Web Application or Delete and Create Web Application are selected in the Create SharePoint Web Application field.

WebApp Application Pool Account

This option specifies which account type to use when creating a web application:

Account at Backup Time – this option tells DPX to create the web application using the same application pool account that it previously used when creating the selected backup.

Note. SharePoint 2010 uses managed accounts for web applications. When you select this option, DPX will try to use the same managed account that it previously used when creating the selected backup. If you delete this account from the SharePoint configuration database, this web application creation will fail.

Network Service – this option tells DPX to create the web application using the Windows Network Service account.

Configurable – this option tells DPX to create the web application using a specific application pool account. Enter the required information for this specific account using the Application Pool Account User Name and the Application Pool Account Password fields that follow this selection.

Note. SharePoint 2010 uses managed accounts for web applications. When you select this option, DPX will look for a managed account with this specified name, and use that account to create the web application. If that managed account does not exist, DPX will create that new managed account before attempting to create the web application.

Note. For a SharePoint 2013 or SharePoint 2016 database on SQL Server 2012, a listener must be configured in the availability group. See SharePoint Installation and Configuration Requirements.

Application Pool Account User Name

After selecting the Configurable option, use this field to supply the specific application pool account user name.

Application Pool Account Password

After selecting the Configurable option, use this field to supply the specific application pool account password.

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