Coordinate a Virtualized Environment for SharePoint

SharePoint Server 2007 Backup
One of the neat features of SharePoint Server 2007 is the addition of a Recycle Bin, which gives you a safety net in case your users accidentally delete items from the portal. As of this date, popular backup vendors such as Symantec and CA are still working on their agent support for SharePoint Server 2007. If you're running Virtual Server 2005 or VMware Server, one backup option is to shut down the virtual server guests and back up all the virtual server guest files on the host server. Doing so gives you an image backup of all the virtual server guests running on the host. The main disadvantage to this approach is that you can't perform a granular restore: You must restore the entire portal. If you're running ESX Server, you can back up the virtual server guest files by using software such as Vizioncore's esxRanger SE or VMware's Consolidated Backup while the virtual server is still running. You can also use SharePoint Server 2007 Central Administration Backup or the command utilities smigrate or stsadm to back up SharePoint Server 2007 to a file, then back up the file to tape or other offline media.

For full granular backup and restore support, you might try third-party solutions such as AvePoint's DocAve backup solution for SharePoint Server 2007, which requires a dedicated backup server and is positioned for enterprise deployments. The main advantage of this solution is the ability to back up and restore items at the document level.

Make Server Virtualization Work for You
Depending on your experience with server virtualization and SharePoint, you'll find there's a learning curve associated with server virtualization. Start slowly, either in a test environment or on servers that will have limited use, until you feel comfortable enough with the technology to use it in a production environment. You'll find the payoff worth the effort.

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