Frequently Asked Questions: Systems Management Server Recovery

A Systems Management Server (SMS) site recovery occurs whenever an SMS site is installed with a site code or site server name that was previously used in that SMS hierarchy. The core tasks of a site recovery are to repair and resynchronize data, because these taska are required to prevent the interruption of operations and data corruption. When you re-install a site, the most critical task is to resynchronize serial numbers.

Yes. The other SMS sites in the hierarchy require a re-installed site to be in its former state. Therefore, it's vital that you repair and resynchronize the re-installed site with the rest of the hierarchy. You must treat a re-installation as a recovery to prevent operational problems in the hierarchy.

Note: A lack of understanding of these recovery requirements is the most common cause of unsuccessful site recoveries.

No, it won’t. In fact:

To protect the child site, before you connect it to a new parent site, always check for failed site recoveries at the potential parent site and at all sites above it. Performing this check helps avoid corrupting software distribution objects at the connecting site and all of its child sites.

Note: Connecting to sites that weren’t correctly recovered is the most common way for software distribution data to become corrupted for the whole hierarchy.

To complete SMS maintenance and recovery procedures successfully, an administrator should be comfortable performing detailed manual tasks on local and remote computers. Sometimes these tasks use Resource Kit tools for the operating system, SMS, and Microsoft SQL Server™. In many cases, the administrator must manipulate critical data on live sites, such as when:

Warning: Failing to complete the procedures successfully can cause site operations to fail, corrupt site data, or even corrupt data at multiple sites. If there is any doubt that the skill level of the SMS administrator is sufficient, a more experienced administrator should supervise the maintenance and recovery procedures. If a skilled administrator is unavailable, the administrator should call Microsoft Product Support Services, who will guide the administrator through the procedures until the administrator is proficient enough to manage the operation alone.

The figure below shows each phase of a recovery.

The expert format was used, because it is too cumbersome to explain all possible recovery scenarios in a single document. However, if you want to see each possible recovery task, you can: Print the All SMS Recovery Tasks page.

Recovery information is intended for SMS administrators, Microsoft Consulting Services, Solution Providers, Product Support Services, and anyone else with a deep technical knowledge of SMS 2.0 and the environment in which it is being used. The intended audience must be familiar with the backup policy, security policy, and operational requirements of the customer environment.

With the Web, we can update recovery information frequently. Our customers regularly find many new and surprising ways to use SMS 2.0 to solve problems, and so we're always adding to the list of situtations to which failure recovery applies. The Web is the fastest way to deliver the most current recovery information to you.

Microsoft is considering options for handling this scenario better in the future.

There is backup and recovery support to the extent that the general SMS product supports Windows® 2000 features. For details about the level of support, refer to the release notes for your version of SMS.

Yes, this support is available if the third party backup tools perform the same steps in the same order as those listed in the SMS backup control file.

Note: A site backup must be a snapshot of all data, and it is critical that you stop all processes that would be accessing that data. If the processes are not stopped, the backup can include partially completed tasks, which can cause problems after site recovery. For example, the data in the registry, files, and database would not be synchronized with each other. Therefore, the only supported site backup is one that is made as a snapshot of all data, at a time when all processes that might access data are stopped.

Unfortunately, no. SMS 2.0 does not stop and restart client processes at this time. If client data were backed up while the processes were active, both the data on disk and in the backup could become corrupted. Although the operation is not supported now, Microsoft hopes to provide support in a future release.

No. SMS data is stored in several places, and SMS data from all the following locations must be restored for an SMS site to function correctly:

No. To avoid relational integrity problems in the site backup, you must stop site services before running backup. (The Backup SMS Site Server task does this automatically.) You can then run the backup.

Note: When backing up a site, always stop the SMS site services and back up all four components of a site as a snapshot so that they can be restored as a snapshot. Failing to follow this procedure is the most common cause of corrupted backups, and trying to restore these corrupted backups is the second most common cause of unsuccessful site recoveries.

No. However, to have a valid backup, you must carry out the same tasks in the same order as in the SMS backup control file. The simplest and most reliable plan is to run the Backup SMS Site Server task and use other backup applications to save the backups to tape.

In such a case, the simplest way to recover is to delete the client access points (CAPs) and logon points, and let the site rebuild them from data stored on the site server. This process ensures that the site is synchronized after the site server is recovered. However, if the CAP contains many files or there are many CAPs and the network is slow, it might take a while to rebuild them all.

There is no advantage to backing up the whole hierarchy at the same time. Each site can be backed up and restored independently of the others.

Yes, but you will experience more data loss, and it will take more time to re-establish normal operations.

No. However, support for secondary site backup is being considered for a future release.

Depends. You need to evaluate the needs of each secondary site based on:

For example, it's probably worth backing up a mission-critical site with 100 local users, including a part-time server administrator, where the site has a tape backup unit on the local network. On the other hand, it's probably not worth backing up a non-critical remote office with only four permanent staff and no local tape backup unit.

Remember that backup is a regular overhead cost, and with reliable hardware and a secure server location, failure happens rarely. The combined goal is to reduce the cost of desktop management and maintain reasonable uptime.

If a site has more than one client access point (CAP), logon point, or distribution point, even if the site server goes down, the client still continues to install software and pass inventory up the hierarchy. Rather than run a regular backup on a site server, you might find it more cost-effective to put a second CAP, logon point, and distribution point on an extra server to provide better support for clients at that site.

You can perform a secondary site recovery either with a backup or without as follows.

To recover a secondary site when you have a backup:

To recover a secondary site when you do not have a backup:

Yes, it does.

No, but this feature is being considered for future releases.

Here are the key points:

Yes, but there will be more data loss, and a longer time is required to re-establish normal operations.

To improve the backup and recovery experience today with SMS 2.0, Microsoft developed the Recovery Expert so that existing SMS customers can experience greater degrees of success backing up and recovering SMS sites in cases of site system migration and upgrades, as well as system failures.

To clearly distinguish between the Recovery Wizard and the Recovery Expert, the Recovery Wizard will be renamed to the Repair Wizard. To provide built-in recovery support and improve the quality of this support, Microsoft will incorporate the Repair Wizard into the Topaz release along with other backup and recovery improvements.

Not at first. Microsoft hopes to localize the second release of the tools.