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Backing Up and Restoring Your SAP System on WindowsLocate this document in the navigation structure

Prerequisites

You are logged on as user <sapsid>adm.

Context

This procedure describes how to back up and restore an SAP system on Windows Server 2008 (R2) and higher.

On Windows, a lot of information created during the SAP system installation and operation is stored in databases like the Windows system registry, the user registry, or the Active Directory, when installing in a Windows domain.

Therefore, we recommend that you always back up and restore the complete computer, including the operating system to avoid data or system inconsistency. In addition, the overhead of a full backup of the computer (backup of operating system disk, non-operating system disks, database data files) compared to a database online backup is negligible. During backup, the SAP system can be online.

To be able to back up and restore your SAP system properly in case of emergency, we strongly recommend that you test the backup and restore procedure on a regular basis, to avoid system downtime and data loss.

Procedure

  • Backing Up your SAP system
    1. Back up the operating system disk.

    2. Back up non-operating system disks (excluding disks that contain database data files only).

    3. Back up the database data files.

      For more information, see your database-specific documentation.

    The Microsoft tool available for creating a backup on Windows Server 2008 (R2) and higher, is called Windows Server Backup (WSB), which replaces the former backup tool NTBackup of Windows Server 2003. You have to activate the WSB feature before you can use it. With WSB you can no longer back up single files or directories, but only complete disk volumes. There is an NTBackup version available, which is running on Windows Server 2008 (R2 and higher, and which you can download from the Microsoft web page. This version, however, only allows you to restore files that were backed up on Windows Server 2003. You cannot use this version to create backup savesets.

    After you have activated the WSB feature, you can invoke it with Start of the navigation path Start Next navigation step Administrative Tools Next navigation step Windows Server Backup End of the navigation path.

    For more information about the Windows Server 2008 (R2) and higher backup and recovery procedures, see the F1 help or the Help and Support documentation, which you find in the Windows Start menu under Start of the navigation path Start Next navigation step Help and Support / Server Fundamentals / Backup and Recovery End of the navigation path.

  • Restoring Your SAP system

    Since the SAP system is very complex, we strongly recommend that you restore complete system backups only.

    Restoring partial backups might lead to configuration inconsistencies and is only possible on the computer where the backup was created, and which has the same (unique) Computer Security Identifier (SID), which is generated during the installation of the Windows operating system.

    Restoring the directory structure \usr\sap including the database data files on another computer leads to a complete loss of the system- and computer-specific environment on the target computer. You cannot start the system or the database on this computer for the following reasons:

    • Configuration information is also stored in the Windows system registry and this cannot be restored on a different computer.

    • Security settings on Directory and Files use unique SIDs, which cannot be translated on a different computer.

    If, for any reason, you must restore a backup on a different computer, you have to perform a homogeneous system copy with the backup/restore procedure. For more information, see the System Copy Guide for your SAP product.

    To restore your SAP system, proceed as follows:

    1. Restore the operating system disk.

      For more information, see the Windows Help and Support documentation, which you can find in the Windows Start menu under Start of the navigation path Start Next navigation step Help and Support / Server Fundamentals / Backup and Recovery / Windows Recovery Environment Overview End of the navigation path.

      As of Windows Server 2008 R2, you can also use PowerShell commands for the backup. For more information, start Windows PowerShell and enter the following command: get-help Start-WBBackup -online

    2. If not already done in the previous step, restore the non-operating system disks with WSB.

    3. Restore the database.

      For more information, see your database-specific documentation.