Hi!
Sharepoint provides 3 ways to perform a backup:
1) From the Central Administration Site: This method is for manual backups, so is not easy for planning schedules.
2) IIS and SQL backup: More advanced than other methods and more complex for restoring.
3) Using STSADM.EXE: Probably this way could be the most easy and useful for you, because you can make a backup from an entire farm content or single site collection, and allows you to plan schedules as you wish.
STSADM.EXE is in your sharepoint BIN folder, located by default at :
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN
To perform a backup, you must run one of the following commands:
For entire server backup:
stsadm -o backup -directory "\\backupServer\backupfolder" -backupmethod <full | differential>For a single site collection:
stsadm -o backup -url http://urlOfYourSiteCollection -filename "c:\backupBackupFolder\backup.bak"To perform a restore, you must use one of the following commands, depending on your backup strategy:
For restore when you have an entire server backup:
stsadm -o restore -directory "\\backupServer\backupfolder" -restoremethod <overwrite | new>For restore when you have a single site collection backup file:
stsadm -o restore -url http://urlOfYourSiteCollection -filename "c:\backupBackupFolder\backup.bak"Hope this helps!
