SharePoint Includes a backup agent, but it is short on features compare it with a dedicated tool such as DocAve.
The following summarises some of the benefits of the AvePoint tool.
SharePoint 2010
- Loss of metadata, securities, and history upon restore
- Complicated manual Granular Backup and Restore possible with STSADM/PowerShell. Can restore a list, site, item, etc. — but only one at a time. Does not work for anything larger than 15 GB.
- Must use multiple backups – Content DB backup + SP backup + file system backup for WFE file customizations to get half of what DocAve can do in one full backup
- No in-place restore. Restore requires a staging server, everything deleted has to be restored, and then you must search for particular item to restore – very time consuming and costly
- No out of place restore capability
- PowerShell (2010)/STSADM can only backup sites and site collections, and cannot backup customizations. Not schedulable
- Snapshots run the risk of SP being restored out of sync + all new data created since last snapshot backup will be lost
- No Project Server BKP or Restore capability
- No Compression or encryption
MOSS 2007
- Loss of metadata, securities, and history upon restore
- Complete lack of granularity on backup and restore
- Must use multiple backups – Content DB backup + SP backup + file system backup for WFE file customizations to get half of what DocAve can do in one full backup
- No in-place restore. Restore requires a staging server, everything deleted has to be restored, and then you must search for particular item to restore – very time consuming and costly
- No out of place restore capability
- STSADM can only backup sites and site collections, and cannot backup customizations. Not schedulable
- Snapshots run the risk of SP being restored out of sync + all new data created since last snapshot backup will be lost
- No Project Server BKP or Restore capability
- No Compression or encryption
DocAve Administrator vs. SharePoint Central Admin
MOSS 2007 & SharePoint 2010
- No batch update capabilities – must manually change configurations and securities for every site and site collection across the farm – no capability from farm down to item level
- No real time permission/security search ability across farm – To find out what a person has access to means you have to go to every site collection, site, list document and check the permissions
- No dead account cleaner. leftover permissions create clutter, drain performance, and open up security risks
- No ability to centrally manage multiple farms
- No ability to clone object or permissions
- Cannot transfer permissions
