Best Practices for Backup and Restore
Create a backup and restore plan
Be sure your backup plan specifies:
The computer where backups will be stored
The programs that you will use to back up your system
The computers you want to back up
The schedule when backups will occur
The offsite location where you will archive backups
Keep a written record of all changes to your BizTalk Server system
Be sure to write down all changes to your system, such as service packs, hotfixes, and QFEs that have been applied. This is crucial to getting your system restored as closely as possible to what existed before the hardware failure.
Implement the following measures to help prevent or minimize the effect of a disaster:
Have your software and firmware updates available.
Have all software installation disks readily available. This includes both system software such as specialized drivers, and application software such as BizTalk Server.
Have a plan to monitor servers proactively. This is very important, since orchestration instances on a failed host may not be recovered by a second host for up to ten minutes.
Maintain hardware records.
Maintain software records.
Implement fault tolerance in your organization at the hardware or software level
Implementing clusters and redundant array of independent disks (RAID) helps ensure that your system can survive a hardware failure.
Archive the backup media on a regular basis in a secure location
Create a schedule for archiving your backup media on a regular basis and keep the archives in a secure, offsite location. This ensures that you have a backup available when you need it.
Verify the integrity of your backups and that they occur without error
Monitor all of your backup jobs and ensure that they complete without any errors.
Keep identical spare hardware available
Having identical spare hardware available ensures that you can quickly replace defective hardware to get up-and-running more quickly.
Document and test your recovery procedures
Ideally, disaster recovery testing should be conducted before running your system in production. Having plans in place and performing prerelease testing will ensure that your IT staff can recover your BizTalk Server systems. This generally means that you must periodically attempt to retore the system backup to the actual hardware you will use
Train your IT staff on disaster recovery procedures
Ensure that your IT staff is prepared to recover the system should the need arise.
Practice restoring from backup in a test environment
Practice restoring your BizTalk Server system in a test environment to ensure that you can restore it to your production environment if a failure occurs.