Backup for SharePoint 6.8 - Release Notes

Management Service Requirements

The Management Service is automatically installed when you install the other components. The computer that hosts the Management Service always hosts the Management Console.

Hardware and software requirements for the Management Service

The computer where you install the Management Service must meet the following minimum requirements:

·2.0 GHz or faster CPU.

·2 GB or more memory. The required memory size varies, depending on the size of the SharePoint objects you back up.

·50 MB free hard disk space.

·Microsoft .NET framework 4.0.

·Monitor capable of displaying 16-bit or more colors at a resolution of 1024 X 768 or higher.

·One of the following Windows versions:

§Windows Server 2008 SP2

§Windows Server 2008 R2

§Windows Server 2012

§Windows Server 2012 R2

§Windows Server 2016

§Windows Server 2019

Permission requirements for the Backup Service user account

The user account that you specify for the Management Service must have the following permissions:  

·Must be a local Administrators on the computer that hosts the Management Service.

·Must be a member of the db_owner role for the repository database.

·To perform farm backups of SharePoint 2010, 2013, or 2016 farms, the account must be a member of the SharePoint farm administrators group.

You specify the database to use as the repository database when you install the Management Services.

In addition, when you install Metalogix Backup for SharePoint, the installer also assigns the permissions required to access the Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) to the farm account and to the account that you specify for the Backup Service.

For more information about the VSS permissions, see the Microsoft article Security Considerations for Requesters at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa384604(VS.85).aspx.

Backup Repository Requirements

The Management Service stores preferences and other information in a repository database. You specify the Microsoft SQL Server host for the database when you install the Metalogix Backup for SharePoint components. The SQL Server host that you select should be one of the following:

·Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2

·Microsoft SQL Server 2012

·Microsoft SQL Server 2014

·Microsoft SQL Server 2016

·Microsoft SQL Server 2017

·Microsoft SQL Server Express

·[optional] Latest version of SQL 2012 native client if TLS 1.2 or 1.1 connections are used.

Backup Service Requirements

Install the Backup Service on every SharePoint Web front end (WFE) server and database server in the SharePoint 2010, 2013, 2016 or 2019 farms that you back up.

Hardware and software requirements for the Backup Service

Any server that hosts the Backup Service must meet the following requirements:

·2.0 GHz or faster CPU.

·2 GB or more memory. The required memory size varies, depending on the size of the SharePoint objects you back up.

·50 MB free hard disk space.

·Microsoft .NET framework 4.0.

·One of the following Windows versions, either 32-bit or 64-bit:

oWindows Server 2008.

oWindows Server 2008 R2.

oWindows Server 2012

oWindows Server 2012 R2

oWindows Server 2016

oWindows Server 2019

Permission requirements for the Backup Service user account

When you install the Backup Service, you specify a user account that the Backup Service uses to access the farm. The Backup Service account that you specify requires the following permissions to perform backups and restores:

Windows permissions

The Backup Service account must have write permissions to the installation folder on the WFE and to the folder where you store backup sets. To perform Farm Backups of SharePoint 2010, 2013 or 2016 farms, the Backup Service account must be a member of the local Administrators group on the server that hosts the Backup Service.

On SharePoint 2010, 2013 or 2016 farms, the Backup Service user account must also be able to perform Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) operations on the computer that hosts the Backup Service. Normally, members of the local Administrators group have these permissions, but they can be removed by a group policy setting. If your group policy settings make changes to the local Administrators group privileges, you should ensure that the Backup Service user has the following privileges:

·Act as part of the operating system

·Backup files and directories

·Create a token object

·Log on as a service

·Manage auditing and security log

·Restore files and directories

·Take ownership of files and other objects

SharePoint permissions

If the SQL Server is a part of the farm, the Backup Service account must be a member of the SharePoint farm administrators group.

If the farm uses a standalone SQL Server, there is no SharePoint farm administrators group on the server.

SQL Server permissions

Metalogix Backup for SharePoint needs access to all SharePoint databases to perform farm content backups.

You should manually grant these permissions for the Admin Content and SharePoint Config databases to the Backup Service user account before you install the Backup Service.

For all other databases, you can manually grant these permissions, or the Backup Service timer job can grant the permission automatically.

When it runs, the Backup Service creates a SharePoint timer job. The job is named Metalogix Backup for SharePoint Confirm Backup Service Permissions. The Backup Service queues the job immediately when it creates the job. In addition, the timer job is scheduled to run at the beginning of every hour. Depending on the state of your timer job queue, execution of the timer job may be delayed. If desired, you can use the SharePoint Central Administration page to check the job status.

The timer job assigns the db_owner role on every SharePoint database to the Backup Service user account that you specify. In addition, the timer job assigns the Full Control policy for every Web application in the farm to the Backup Service user account.

The timer job ensures that the Backup Service can access every SharePoint database to perform backups. Normal SharePoint operations, including creating a new Web application or a service application, can create new databases. If you disable the job, you must manually assign permissions for the new databases or backups can fail.

When you perform an operation that creates a new database, you can use the SharePoint 2010, 2013 or 2016 timer job controls to manually start the job. You can also wait until the start of the next hour for the job to run on schedule.

Self-Service Recovery Requirements

The Metalogix Backup for SharePoint Self-Service Recovery feature lets site collection administrators restore the backed-up content for which they are responsible.

To restore content, the user must currently be a site collection administrator. In addition, the user must have site collection administrator privileges for the content before the backup occurs.

You can deploy the feature to any Web front end (WFE) in your SharePoint farm. When you configure Metalogix Backup for SharePoint for your farm, you can automatically deploy the feature to the farm.