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Procedure documentationBacking Up and Restoring Your SAP System on Windows Locate this document in the navigation structure

 

This procedure describes how to back up and restore a SAP system on Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008 (R2).

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 backup 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.

Prerequisites

You are logged on as user <sapsid>adm.

Procedure

Backing Up your SAP system
Windows Server 2003

  1. Back up the operating system disk.

  2. Back up the directory structures on non-operating system disks (excluding database data files)

  3. Back up the database data files.

    For more information, see Database Administration.

The backup software delivered on Windows Server 2003 is designed to back up and restore a operating system to a disk that is directly connected to the computer. It has no or very limited functions and features to restore data from a disk located in a network. Therefore, customers often use third-party backup tools with more sophisticated features, such as the restore function from network locations or the snapshot backup function. These third-party backup tools often also reduce backup time and the use of system resources.

The Microsoft tool available for creating a backup on Windows Server 2003 is called NTBackup. With NTBackup you can create a backup archive of a selectable amount of objects located on one or more disks. The backup saveset can either be written to a SCSI-attached tape drive or to files on disks, which can also be located on a remote computer.

To run NTBackup, choose   Start   Programs   Accessories   System Tools   Backup  .

You can also run NTBackup in a command prompt:

- ntbackup.exe

For more information about NTBackup, see the F1 help or the Windows Help and Support documentation, which you can find in the Windows Start menu.

The procedure for backing up and restoring a Windows operating system disk is called Automated System Recovery (ASR). For the backup part, it uses a Wizard in NTBackup to create a saveset for restoring the operating system disk. The functionality of the restore part of ASR when it accesses network-based saveset locations is very limited. Therefore, we recommend that you also save the saveset to a local disk.

For more information about ASR, see the Windows Help and Support documentation, which you can find in the Windows Start menu. Search for automated system recovery.

After you have created the backup of the operating system disk, you have to create additional backup sets for the non-operating system disks attached to the system. You use NTBackup to create these backup savesets, which then might be located on a remote disk.

Finally you have to back up the database data files.

For more information, see Database Administration.

Windows Server 2008 (R2)

  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 Database Administration.

In Windows Server 2008 (R2), NTBackup was replaced with Windows Server Backup (WSB). You have to activate this 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 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   Administrative Tools   Windows Server Backup  

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

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.

Windows Server 2003

  1. Restore the operating system disk with Automated System Recovery (ASR).

  2. Boot Windows Server 2003 from the installation DVD and press the F2 key.

    For more information, see the Windows ASR documentation.

  3. Restore non-operating system disks with NTBackup.

    For more information, see the F1 help in NTBackup.

  4. Restore the database.

    For more information, see Database Administration.

Windows Server 2008 (R2)

  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   Help and Support / Server Fundamentals / Backup and Recovery / Windows Recovery Environment Overview  .

  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 Database Administration.