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This information Applies to TeamHeadquarters version 5.x only. |
The TeamHeadquarters database is built using features of Microsoft NTFS 5 file system, enabling the advanced permissions and hierarchical data structures that are available to users and administrators. While this capability offers many advantages, some of the features of NTFS 5 do not lend themselves well to backup and restoration through conventional backup software. The backup software provided with Windows 2000, and other conventional backup software, is capable of managing the data stored within TeamHeadquarters. However, the resulting backup archives end up considerably larger than the original database, and take an inordinate amount of time to complete their backup cycle. In order to facilitate fast backup of your TeamHeadquarters system, dedicated backup and restore utilities have been provided. These utilities are designed specifically for providing backup files of the TeamHeadquarters application and database contents. The utilities are used to extract and compress the contents of the TeamHeadquarters system, creating a single backup archive file. This file can then be efficiently stored onto tape or other backup media using Windows 2000 backup software, or another backup product.
This document will describe the usage of the backup and restore utilities and some possible backup strategies that can be used to manage your TeamHeadquarters system.
With a new installation, your TeamHeadquarters Server has been set up with the following backup schedule:
A weekly backup of the TeamHeadquarters registry settings to run every Sunday @ 1:00am
A weekly backup of the TeamHeadquarters system files to run every Sunday @ 1:15am
A daily backup of the TeamHeadquarters database to run each day of the week, Tuesday through Saturday @ 1:00am
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IMPORTANT: The \Thq\Bin and \Thq\Database directories must be excluded from all backup schedules run by Windows Backup or any third party backup utility. |
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IMPORTANT: Ensure that the TeamHeadquarters backup folder (\Thq\Backup) is backed up regularly by Windows Backup or your third party backup utility. |
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IMPORTANT: For disaster recovery, it is strongly recommended that a backup of the TeamHeadquarters server’s System State and a copy of the file ThqRestore.exe (found in <install drive>\Thq\Bin) be saved to the <install drive>\Thq\Backup directory. |
There are a number of restrictions in place when performing backup and restore operations. Some of these limitations may be removed in future releases of the backup utilities.
To aid in keeping the backup and restore utilities as efficient as possible, at this time it is necessary to backup the system software separately from the database. In most installations, the backup schedules will require this separation to some degree, since the system software seldom, if ever, changes. This limitation prevents a single backup archive from containing both the software and database. During a full system restore, it will be necessary to restore the system archive first, and then restore the database archive(s).
The permissions capability of TeamHeadquarters makes it possible for a user to prevent access to objects within the database in a way that will prevent even backup operators and administrators from gaining access. To provide backup protection for objects that have tight security restrictions, it is necessary to run the backup and restore processes using the built-in SYSTEM account. This account is able to access all objects, providing the database administrators with the means to give users complete protection of data. At this time, Windows 2000 does not expose a facility to allow execution of programs using the SYSTEM account credentials without intervention. TeamHeadquarters ships with a scheduling utility that allows scheduling the execution of the backup and restore utilities so that they run using the SYSTEM account. Details of the use of the scheduling utility follow in this document.
The TeamHeadquarters software is built using COM technology, written using a number of different programming tools. The installation of the software automatically registers the COM components with Windows. However, restoring the system files from backup does not automatically re-register the components. Full restoration instructions, including registration of the COM components, follow later in this document. Restoration of the registry settings to an alternate location will not replace the database registry keys. Those keys will need to be changed manually to reflect the true database location.
At installation time, TeamHeadquarters automatically creates a new web site within IIS, and a new Index Server catalog providing search services. To avoid conflicts with existing catalog and web setup, the restoration process does not try to recreate the installation of these services. In a full system restore, it will be necessary to run the installation utility that generates these settings. A partial system restore, to the same server and in the same installation directory, will not require the IIS and IS installation to be performed. More details follow.
The backup and restore utilities are copied to the TeamHeadquarters BIN directory during system installation. This section will describe the utilities and their syntax. Execution of any of the utilities with no parameters will display the syntax information.
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This is the utility used to create backup archive files of the TeamHeadquarters system. There are currently 3 main components to the system that need to be considered for backup: Registry, Software, and Database. To have an effective and efficient backup strategy, each of these components generally requires different backup schedules. The THQBackup.exe utility is used to backup each component. | |
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This utility is used to restore the components of the TeamHeadquarters system from backup archives. | |
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The contents of a backup archive can only be read by the backup utilities. To view the contents of a particular backup archive file, use this utility. The results are saved as a comma-delimited text file, allowing for import into electronic spreadsheet software for formatting and reporting. By using this utility and format, reports on system usage and volume can be generated. This information is not user specific, but can give information regarding the general size and type of usage of the system. | |
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Backup and restore operations need to have full access to all components of the system in order to be effective. To facilitate this, the SYSTEM account always has the access required to perform complete and unrestricted backup and restorations of the system and database. Since Windows doesn't currently provide an interface to allow scheduling tasks to execute as the SYSTEM account, the &qout;THQScheduler.js&qout; script is provided. Using this script, it is possible to create new scheduled tasks, or modify tasks that have been created using the Windows Scheduled Tasks interface. |
The concept behind backup and restoration of a system or application is to be able to recover a system to working order in the event of a failure. The nature of the failure, however, isn't always limited to hardware issues. Anything from hard drive failures to accidental erasure of data can be cause for alarm, requiring some sort of recovery. With these things in mind, it is necessary to create a backup schedule that will balance the potential data loss against the time and space required to maintain the backups. There is also often a different strategy required for data backup vs. software backup. Installed software often doesn't change very often, and when it does change, the timing of the change is usually predictable, so it generally isn't necessary to backup the software as often as the data associated with the software. It's also important to consider the effects of potential system attack by hackers and viruses, and include the risk of attack when designing a backup strategy. Lastly, when developing a backup strategy, consider the specific capabilities of the backup software being considered in relation to the job that it is expected to perform. Some of the generic backup software available today cannot do an adequate job of backing up data for some applications. Some of these products will have additional features that can be purchased to support specialized backup for particular applications. Often it will be necessary to combine the capabilities of two software packages to achieve the results that are required for the business circumstances.
Considering the specific application structure of TeamHeadquarters, there are several backup techniques that can be employed to provide excellent backup protection without requiring hardware changes, changes to the environment, and without having a huge negative impact on the performance of the system. The backup tools provided with TeamHeadquarters are only designed to be able to backup the application software and data associated with the TeamHeadquarters application. As such, the backup tools can give much better backup control, and can allow much better protection of the data as compared to more generic backup solutions. This article presents a number of techniques that can be used to provide backup coverage for your TeamHeadquarters system. This is by no means an exhaustive reference, but simply tries to give insight into the approaches that can be taken, and provide some samples that can be modified to fit a particular installation.
Case 1: TeamHeadquarters is running on a standalone server with ActiveDirectory installed locally, using a RAID storage solution, and a local tape backup device. System is behind a firewall, and is only used by internal clients.
Schedule a monthly system backup with the THQBackup utility. Store the backup file in a location separate from the TeamHeadquarters installation. Name the file and the scheduled request appropriately.
THQScheduler
/New:THQSystemBackup
/Comment:"Backup of the TeamHeadquarters software and settings"
/RunAs:\
/Type:3
/MonthlyDateDays:1
/MonthlyDateMonths:ALL
/App:THQBackup.exe
/Parms:"/S /R /F:D:\Backups\THQSystem /C /O"
Schedule a regular full database backup with the THQBackup utility, using the "/RESET" option to reset the backup indicators. Store the backup file in the same location. Name the file and the scheduled request appropriately.
THQScheduler
/New:THQFullDatabaseBackup
/Comment:"Full backup of the TeamHeadquarters database"
/RunAs:\
/Type:2
/WeeklyInterval:1
/WeeklyDays:Sunday
/App:THQBackup.exe
/Parms:"/D /F:D:\Backups\THQFullDatabase /C /O /RESET"
Schedule a daily backup of the system with the Windows Backup utility. Include ActiveDirectory, the registry, and the directory where the TeamHeadquarters backups are stored.
Case 2: TeamHeadquarters is running on an application server, using an external ActiveDirectory source. The server does not have RAID storage.
Schedule a monthly system backup with the THQBackup utility. Store the backup file in a location separate from the TeamHeadquarters installation. Name the file and the scheduled request appropriately.
THQScheduler
/New:THQSystemBackup
/Comment:"Backup of the TeamHeadquarters software and settings"
/RunAs:\
/Type:3
/MonthlyDateDays:1
/MonthlyDateMonths:ALL
/App:THQBackup.exe
/Parms:"/S /R /F:D:\Backups\THQSystem /C /O"
Schedule a daily full database backup with the THQBackup utility. Store the backup file in the same location. Name the file and the scheduled request appropriately.
THQScheduler
/New:THQFullDatabaseBackup
/Comment:"Full backup of the TeamHeadquarters database"
/RunAs:\
/Type:1
/DailyInterval:1
/App:THQBackup.exe
/Parms:"/D /F:D:\Backups\THQFullDatabase /C /O /RESET"
Schedule a daily backup of the system with the Windows Backup utility. Include ActiveDirectory, the registry, and the directory where the TeamHeadquarters backups are stored.
