I did a lot of development and customizations in SharePoint. I have taken backup of SharePoint Applications multiple times and restored the same using STSADM command.

One day when I was working of a requirement analysis for SharePoint project, I needed to find all the possible approaches to do the backup/restore of SharePoint Application to do the feasibility analysis. I wondered as I didn't remember any other approach other than "stsadm backup" and "stsadm restore" commands.

I did googling to find out various approaches to do the backup/restore of SharePoint Application. I went through various blogs and articles in the internet and consolidated following various approaches to backup/restore SharePoint Applications (MOSS 2007/WSS 3.0):

  1. Following STSADM command takes backup of SharePoint Farm to a specified UNC path:

    stsadm -o backup -directory "[UNC Path]" -backupmethod full -item "farm" 

  2. Following STSADM command takes backup of all SharePoint Web Applications to a specified UNC path:

    stsadm -o backup -directory "[UNC Path]" -backupmethod full -item "Windows SharePoint Services Web Application"  

  3. Following stsadm command takes backup of the SharePoint Site Collection at the specified location:

    stsadm –o backup –filename [file path and name] –url [http://ServerName] [-overwrite] 

  4. Following STSADM command restores the SharePoint Farm:

    stsadm -o restore -directory "[UNC Path]" -backupmethod full -item "farm" 

  5. Following STSADM command restores all the SharePoint Web Applications that are in the current Farm:

    stsadm -o backup -directory "[UNC Path]" -backupmethod full -item "farm\Windows SharePoint Services Web Application"  

  6. Following stsadm command restores SharePoint Site Collection to an existing IIS web application:

    stsadm –o backup –filename [file path and name] –url [http://ServerName]  

  7. Take backup/restore of SharePoint content and configuration databases from the SQL Server itself. By doing backup/restore of SharePoint content database actually does the backup/restore of SharePoint Application as in SharePoint applications all the content is stored in the databases. 

  8. Restore a SharePoint Site, List/Library, or List/Library Items from Recycle Bin if it is enabled in that SharePoint Application  

Each of the above approaches have their own advantages and disadvantages which one must have to look before going with any approach.