SharePoint’s business-value proposition creates support pain for IT. Much of this pain is felt in backup and recovery, which must occur on three levels: item, site, and farm.
I'd like to offer a holistic view of SharePoint backup and restore and focus on creating and managing a sustainable, comprehensive SharePoint backup and restore solution. To create a plan that supports all three levels above, you must
- understand stakeholder requirements
- define service level agreements (SLAs)
- plan for a complete set of backup and restore components
- consider the technical architecture
- evaluate backup and restore toolsets
- create policy and process documentation
- provide operations and awareness training
- develop a test plan
- complete a proof of concept or pilot
- sign off with farm and application owners
- create a backup schedule
- develop a governance plan
- consider the backup and restore processes
Stakeholder Requirements
To understand the requirements and expectations of a SharePoint backup and recovery plan, you must reach out to stakeholders, including people who
- use SharePoint daily, as a tool for collaboration
- run applications (or components) on top of SharePoint
- sustain SharePoint and the related infrastructure
Two crucial goals are at play: to gather requirements from the various stakeholders and to educate stakeholders and thereby proactively manage expectations. You do this by interviewing each stakeholder. To begin, ask business staff
- Is the data to be backed up directly linked to revenue generation?
- What is the cost per hour?
- If the data is lost, what is the cost to recreate it?
- If the data is lost, will the brand be affected?
- Is the data directly classed as corporate records?
- Who uses the data and how many rely on it?
- When do users access the data?