SharePoint archiving tasks

The SharePoint task is the process that archives the SharePoint site collections. Task properties include the archiving schedule, the account the process is to use and the archiving reports to generate.

A single task can support several SharePoint targets, which may be virtual servers (SharePoint 2.0), Web applications (SharePoint 3.0), or site collections. Alternatively, you can create multiple SharePoint tasks and assign targets to each task, as required. The SharePoint task runs under the control of the Task Controller Service.

To archive regularly all the target sites associated with a task, you can use an Enterprise Vault site schedule or you can set a separate schedule for the SharePoint task. Alternatively, an immediate archive run can be started for all sites serviced by an archiving task, or for a particular site collection.

Figure: An example SharePoint archiving configuration shows an Enterprise Vault server archiving documents from two site collections on a WSS 3.0 Server and one site collection on a SharePoint Portal Server 2003.

Figure: An example SharePoint archiving configuration

An example SharePoint archiving configuration

The same task is performing the archiving for both SharePoint Servers. The site collections have been defined as targets and archiving policies have been assigned to each target, defining how the site collection is to be archived. Separate archives are created for each site collection.