Your system recovery plan must take several important factors into consideration. It must provide recovery not only for individual Microsoft Provisioning System components, but also for the additional software that is included in the deployment, such as Microsoft Exchange 2000 Enterprise Server and SQL Server 2000.
It is important that you use the procedures Microsoft recommends to backup and recover non-Microsoft Provisioning System software, such as Internet Information Services (IIS), Exchange and SQL server.
Important
The following table describes the considerations you should apply to backup and recover Microsoft Provisioning System components:
| Microsoft Provisioning System components | Backup and recovery considerations |
|---|---|
| Microsoft Provisioning Framework (MPF) provisioning engine components and MPF client component | It is usually better to reinstall the Microsoft Provisioning
Framework (MPF) provisioning engine components and MPF client
components rather than attempting to recover them from a backup
because a reinstallation is usually quicker than a recovery. A recovery is appropriate, however, if you have non-Microsoft Provisioning System data on the same computer as the MPF components, and that data prevents you from formatting the computer's hard disk and reinstalling the MPF components. If you do want to recover MPF provisioning engine components and MPF client components, however, you must delete the MPF registry keys prior to recovery. After recovering the MPF provisioning engine components and MPF client components, the registry keys will be recreated automatically. For more information, see To delete MPF registry entries in preparation for recovery. |
| Configuration database (MPFConfig) | It is critical that you run regular backups of the configuration database and verify the integrity of your configuration database backups. For more information, see Configuration database. |
| Transaction log database (MPFTranLogData) | It is recommended that you not backup the transaction database because to do so, you must take the transaction log database out of production. This prevents MPF from functioning. For more information, see Transaction logs. |
| Audit log database (MPFAudit) | The backup and recovery of the audit log database should be part of the standard SQL server backup and recovery procedure. For more information, see Audit log. |
| Managed namespaces, namespaces, and providers | Managed namespaces, namespaces, and providers are stored in the configuration database and are backed up and recovered as part of the configuration database backup and recovery procedures. |
| Delegated Administration Console | The backup and recovery of all Delegated Administration Console files and components is covered by the infrastructure components on which they run. Be sure, however, to include the mswatdb as part of your SQL backup and recovery procedure because it is the database where all Delegated Administration Console information is stored. |
The following table provides an example of a Microsoft Provisioning System deployment that supports hosted Internet Information Services (IIS) and Exchange services. The table also provides the corresponding backup and recovery information for each component.
| Server | Components | Backup and recovery information |
|---|---|---|
| Front-end server | Microsoft Provisioning Framework (MPF) client components, Microsoft Provisioning System, Delegated Administration Console, Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) | MPF client components and MDAC are either included in the Windows 2000 Server backup and recovery procedure or they are reinstalled. Delegated Administration Console files and configuration are included in Active Directory backup and recovery, Windows 2000 Server backup and recovery, and SQL backup and recovery. |
| Domain controller | Active Directory, DNS | For more information, see Active Directory Disaster Recovery at the Microsoft Web site. (http://www.microsoft.com/) |
| Web hosting server | Internet Information Services (IIS) 5.0 | For more information about backing up and recovering IIS, see articles Q301420, "HOW TO: Use Windows Backup and Recovery Tools to Make a Data Backup of Internet Information Services", and Q300762, "HOW TO: Create a Metabase Backup in IIS 5", in the Microsoft Knowledge Base. |
| Exchange hosting server | Microsoft Exchange 2000 Enterprise Server, Service Pack 2 | For more information, see Disaster Recovery for Exchange 2000 Server at the Microsoft Web site. (http://www.microsoft.com/) |
| Provisioning server | MPF core components, MPF service providers, MPF Resource Manager engine, MPF Provisioning Manager, queue manager, Exchange system management tools, MDAC | All MPF components, Exchange system management tools, and Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) are included in Windows 2000 Server backup and recovery or are reinstalled, as necessary. |
| Configuration and audit server | SQL Server 2000 Service Pack 1, Microsoft Provisioning Framework database components (Resource Manager database, configuration database, transaction log database, audit database) | For more information, see Designing a Backup and Restore Strategy at the Microsoft Web site. (http://www.microsoft.com/) |