Backup and Restore Search Service Application

Backup

there are 2 things to back up:

• search service app
• search service app proxy

Use PowerShell script or backup in Central Admin. e.g. (need to specify the backup directory and backup item name)

Backup-SPFarm -Directory "\\******" -BackupMethod Full -Item “Farm\Shared Services\Shared Services Applications\Search Service Application” -Verbose
Backup-SPFarm -Directory "\\*****" -BackupMethod Full -Item "Farm\Shared Services\Shared Services Proxies\Search Service Application" -Verbose

backup search service app and its proxy in a network location, better in the DB server.

Restore:

• search service app
• search service app proxy

PowerShell script examples:

Restore-SPFarm -Directory "\\***" -Item "Farm\Shared Services\Shared Services Applications\Search Service Application" -RestoreMethod Overwrite -Verbose
Restore-SPFarm -Directory "\\**" -Item "Farm\Shared Services\Shared Services Proxies\Search Service Application" -RestoreMethod Overwrite -Verbose

During restoration, you will be asked to input account name and password for the search crawl account.

Test cases:

I use 2 test cases here:

• Index reset (which clears all search history as well as all indexed items, the searchable items turn to 0)
• modify the topology of search service application (i.e. add one more query component)

The test result is very positive, the topology is restored, the search crawling history is also restored. The searchable items are the same as when the backup takes place. That's exactly what we want.

Why Backup/Restore

In most of the cases that we need to do a restoration, one/several query components is disabled/not responding, though we are able to fix the query component, and bring it online. But, a full crawl is required, which takes ~3 days to complete.  

We don't like full crawl, it'll utilize many server resource, which affects production environment performance, sometimes it even impacts the service. Moreover, during that all deferential changes will not be searched out.

Ref

 

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee748635(v=office.14).aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee748654(v=office.14).aspx