Backup Scope

In backing up your Laserfiche repository, you will need to back up two different components:

The SQL databases that store the folder structure, metadata, and other administrative information about the repository.
The volumes that contain the images, text, electronic documents, thumbnails, and word locations associated with the documents. These are stored as normal files within the Windows file system and must remain synchronized with the SQL database. Since additional volumes may be created as the repository is used, be sure to update your backup procedure regularly to account for any new volumes.

Backing up your DBMS may require different software than backing up your volumes and index files, although some third-party backup software can back up both SQL databases and Windows files.

For more detailed information on backing up the different components of a repository, see the Designing a Laserfiche 10 Backup and Recovery Plan white paper.

SQL Databases

SQL databases may be backed up in a variety of ways, depending on what software you have and what type of SQL database you are using.

Native SQL Server backup. Microsoft SQL Server includes a variety of powerful and flexible backup tools. For more information, see Create a Full Database Backup in the Microsoft SQL Server documentation for more information.
Third-party software with SQL option. Third-party companies make software that can back up both your volume files and your SQL database files.
Detach and copy the SQL database. Stop the Laserfiche service, without stopping the SQL service, and perform the detach operation on your SQL database through the Microsoft SQL server. Both the detached .MDF and .LDF files need to be copied. To restore the database, re-attach it to your server. You should not simply turn off SQL and copy the databases; you must detach them before copying then and then reattach them.

Index Files

It is not, strictly speaking, necessary to back up index files; the server can recreate them if they are accidentally lost. However, for large repositories, the re-indexing process can be extremely lengthy, so we recommend that you back up index files whenever possible. They are stored in the SEARCH folder of the repository directory on the same machine as the Laserfiche Full-Text Search Engine.

Volumes

Volumes are standard Windows directories, and so they may be backed up using whatever method you prefer to use for Windows files. The main consideration when backing up volumes is keeping them synchronized with your SQL database backup files. You can do this by making your volumes temporarily read-only.

If your industry is regulated, you may be required to archive your data. In this case, you can use volume rollover to keep your volumes at a manageable size, and export them periodically onto archival media. Exported and archived volumes can be an excellent disaster recovery resource, because they include the database structure and document metadata in XML format.

Audit Data

If you are using Laserfiche Audit Trail and want to ensure you do not lose audit data, you will need to back up the Audit Trail binary log files. For more information, see Backing Up Your Audit Data.

For more information on a specific repository administration topic, return to the repository administration home page.

Laserfiche Server Named User Database

If you are using Laserfiche Rio or Laserfiche Avante, your Laserfiche Server installation includes a database file that contains your named user license information for that server. This file contains repository named user information for Laserfiche Rio Servers, and all named user and device information for Laserfiche Avante Servers. It is a good idea to back up this file, as otherwise you will need to re-allocate your licenses after restoring from backup. For more information, see Backing Up Your Laserfiche Server Named User Database. (This file does not exist for Laserfiche Team and Laserfiche United installations.)