About a non-granular backup vs. a backup that uses Granular Recovery Technology (GRT)

Non-granular backups allow the restore of SharePoint objects at the level of a Web Application or a SharePoint 2003 portal, team site, portal database. This type of backup also allows the restore at the level of the Single Sign-on database. Individual items cannot be restored from non-granular backups.

To restore individual items using Granular Recovery Technology (GRT), NetBackup performs a granular-level backup of the SharePoint Web Application or the SharePoint 2003 portal or team site content. You can restore the entire database or you can restore items individually. Items can then be restored to the existing Web Application or the SharePoint 2003 portal or team site. Or you can redirect to a file system location. Individual items are cataloged for restore browsing and for recovery on a granular-level backup image.

Note:

The farm databases (Configuration, Single Sign-on, Index Files, or Index database) cannot be backed up with a policy that is enabled for individual item restores. For comprehensive farm disaster recovery, back up those databases with a separate policy where individual document restores are disabled.

Table: SharePoint Server 2007 and later non-granular backup vs. a backup that uses Granular Recovery Technology describes what SharePoint 2007 objects can be restored with non-granular and granular-level backups.

Table: SharePoint Server 2007 and later non-granular backup vs. a backup that uses Granular Recovery Technology

Object	Can be restored from a non-granular backup	Can be restored from a backup that uses Granular Recovery Technology
Configuration database	Yes	No
Single Sign-on database	Yes	No
Global Settings	Yes	No
Index Files	Yes	No
Shared Services	Yes	Yes
Web Applications	Yes	Yes
Individual documents	No	Yes

Table: SharePoint Server 2003 non-granular backup vs. a backup that uses Granular Recovery Technology describes what SharePoint 2003 objects can be restored with non-granular and granular-level backups.

Table: SharePoint Server 2003 non-granular backup vs. a backup that uses Granular Recovery Technology

Object	Can be restored from a non-granular backup	Can be restored from a backup that uses Granular Recovery Technology
Configuration database	Yes	No
Index database	Yes	No
Portal	Yes	Yes
Team site	Yes	Yes
Portal databases	Yes	Yes
Single Sign-on database	Yes	No
Backward-compatible document libraries	Yes	No
Backward-compatible document library store	Yes	No
Individual documents	No	Yes