Backing Up MOM 2005
By: Justin Harter, MOM MVP
One of the items that can be easily neglected when implementing a MOM 2005 environment is ensuring that all of the appropriate components are backed up on a consistent basis. By doing this, you are ensuring your ability to properly restore/preserve your MOM environment. Many people may back up the MOM OnePoint database, but simply stop there. This will not fully ensure your MOM environment against disaster.
One of the key components of any thorough MOM backup plan is the MOM databases. By far the most important item to backup is the OnePoint database. Failure of the MOM OnePoint database is catastrophic if you do not have a reliable backup. If you have MOM Reporting installed, you will also need to backup the SystemCenterReporting database. Other databases that need to be backed up would be the two Notification Workflow databases (NotificationWorkflowNotificationWorkflowApp and NotificationWorkflowNSMain), the SQL Reporting Services database (ReportServer), and the system databases msdb and master.
Below is a recommended backup schedule for the various MOM-related databases:
| Component | Full Backup | Incremental Backup |
| MOM Database (OnePoint) | Daily | N/A |
| MOM Reporting Database (SystemCenterReporting) | Monthly | Weekly |
| SQL Reporting Database (ReportServer) | recurring basis depending upon frequency of report update | recurring basis depending upon frequency of report update |
| Master Database (Master) | You should backup this database after installing and configuring the MOM Database components and after making significant changes to logons or other security changes. | Per your IT policies |
| MSDB Database (msdb) | Only after first installing and configuring the MOM Database components. | Only if you change the scheduled SQL Server Agent jobs that MOM uses. |
| Management Packs and Reports (.akm & .xml files) | You can do this monthly of after significant changes to Management Packs. You only need to backup only the changed Management Packs. | N/A |
| Custom Files | As needed | N/A |
Another very critical component to backup are the management packs. It is extremely crucial to practice good change control management when dealing with management packs and as a part of the process, you should archive your management packs on a consistent basis (it will vary with different environments). You should always back these management packs up to a central repository and you should always have a single, descriptive naming convention. Courtesy of MOMResources.org, we have a script that will allow you to back up ALL top level rule groups to an archive directory. You can schedule this script to run using Windows task scheduler on a regular basis (some environments may want to do a weekly backup, whereas others might see a monthly backup more appropriate). You can download the script HERE.
Other components you may want to consider backing up are the MOM custom files, which include ManualMC.txt, file transfer server files (files that you use for file transfer responses), custom .OMC (Operator Console) files, and custom .MMC (Administrator console) files. You should back these files up on a schedule based upon what's appropriate for your environment.
Next in our series will be an article on completely restoring MOM. Stay tuned!