NMM: Best Practices for SharePoint Backups

The purpose of this document is to highlight the steps required when configuring NetWorker Module for Microsoft (NMM) backups for Microsoft Office SharePoint Servers.

Basic environment gathering

A SharePoint Farm consists of one or more Web Front End servers (that have SharePoint installed) and one or more SQL Servers.
Determine the name and fully qualified name of each server.

Installation

Each server in the SharePoint farm requires that NetWorker Client and NMM software be installed on each SharePoint server.
The version of NetWorker Client and NMM software must match.   

Register SharePoint Volume Shadow copy Service (VSS) Writer

This step is performed by the SharePoint administrator and installer, and is not part of NetWorker Client or NMM installation.
The SharePoint Administrator has at least the following privileges.

• Local Windows Administrator
• SharePoint Farm administrator privileges
• SQL Server roles for sysadmin, dbcreator, and public

This step requires performing the following command with run as administrator privileges.

stsadm  -o registerwsswriter

Grant Permissions for SQL Server and SharePoint Shell Admin Access and Windows local Administrator 

SQL Server Roles

On the SQL Server, ensure that the following accounts have required SQL Roles, sysadmin, dbcreator, public.

• SQL Server local System account  
• SharePoint VSS Writer service account, (check the service account of this service on SharePoint Server)
• Computer Account of Each SharePoint Server

Windows Local Administrator

Ensure that those same accounts are also granted Local Windows Administrator rights on each SharePoint Server and SQL Server.

SharePoint Shell Access

Open the SharePoint Management Shell, enter the following command:

Add-SPShellAdmin -UserName "<DOMAIN>\<HOSTNAME>$"

For each hostname of the SharePoint servers plus $ sign:

# For example, wfe is the web front end server in the AD domain then type,

      Add-SPShellAdmin -UserName "AD\wfe$"

# Repeat for the other web front end servers, for example, wfe2 and wfe3.

      Add-SPShellAdmin -UserName "AD\wfe2$"
      Add-SPShellAdmin -UserName "AD\wfe3$"

# Verify that the above hostname SYSTEM accounts have been added to SPShellAdmin by using the command.
      Get-SPShellAdmin

Run the Client Wizard to create the Primary SharePoint Web Front End.

One of the Web frontend servers is designated as the primary SharePoint Farm server.
This server coordinates the federated backup of all the SharePoint data in the Farm on all the other hosts.

Run the New Client Wizard and enter the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) of the web frontend server.
This client is scheduled for backup.