SAP Backup and Restore

In case of a disaster, you will want to ensure you have a backup of everything you need in order to restore to the original state.

Backup
Below is a list of what is a must to backup.
(Note: The information below is based on a Microsoft environment, including Windows Server and SQL Server)

• Database – Ensure a full backup is carried out every night on production. DEV and QAS does not require full backup, differential can be used. Ensure the following databases are backed up.
  Master which is used to store all of SQL Servers system information such as users, databases etc.
  MSDB – used by SQL Server to schedule alerts and Jobs.
  
• Transaction Log – on a production system, this should be backed up every hour. This will therefore allow for a maximum of an hour’s loss of data.
  
• SAP Tree structure which can be found in folder “..\usr\“. Backup all the SAP files under the usr folder.

• Operating System – create a backup of the “system state” which allows you to restore the operating systems configuration files. These include Boot.ini, the registry, SYSVOL, Active Directory...

Restore
Assuming the operating system has been installed, there are two options

Option 1

• Reinstall SAP
• Apply the SAP tree structure over the above install
• Restore database

Option 2 (Quicker)

• Restore System State
• Reapply SAP tree structure
• Restore database.

SAP Transaction DB02 can be used to check some database settings such as the database size. I think this is quite good because it doesn’t matter what database is used, the SAP transaction can be used as a consistent GUI to find database information.