To perform a full system recovery of a SharePoint server, complete a disaster recovery of the farm client; back up the servers, content databases, and the farm; and then restore them.
Disaster Recovery Using a Farm Client
You can use a farm client to back up and recover web applications, content databases, and web front end data, such as the SharePoint hive, IIS settings, and the SharePoint registry entries.
Backing up the database server does not back up Web Front End data such as the SharePoint hive, IIS settings, and the SharePoint registry entries. To back up these components, you can perform a disaster recovery of the farm client.
The process to perform a disaster recovery of the farm client is as follows:
Install the SharePoint Server Agent on all the servers in the farm.
In the <Admin Console>, create a user-defined subclient for the farm client. From the Add content dialog box, select the web front end data.
To protect the web front end data, perform a backup operation from the user-defined subclient that you created.
Recover the Web Front End data using the farm client.
Back Up All the System Components
Before you begin recovering the SharePoint Server farm, back up the servers, content databases, and farm.
Servers: In your SharePoint farm setup, if the servers are on virtual machines, back them up using the Virtual Server Agent for VMware. If the servers are on physical computers, back them up using the File System Agent.
Content databases: Back up the subclient that contains the SharePoint content databases.
SharePoint farm: Back up the subclient that contains the SharePoint farm.
Recovering the SharePoint Server Farm
To recover the SharePoint Server farm, you must restore the following components:
Servers: To restore the virtual machines hosting the servers, use the Virtual Server Agent for VMware. If the servers are on virtual machines, restore them using the Virtual Server Agent for VMware. If the servers are on physical computers, restore them using the File System Agent.
For information about restoring a virtual machine, see VMware Restores.
Content databases: Restore the subclient that contains the SharePoint content databases.
SharePoint farm: Restore the subclient that contains the SharePoint farm, but do not restore the solutions.
For more information, see Restoring a Content Database with Web Application.