A Free SharePoint Item Level Restore Tool From AvePoint

By Barb Mosher | Published Jul 6, 2009

Long known for their SharePoint administration and management solutions, AvePoint (news, site) has decided to offer a little piece of their software for free. Want the ability to restore at the item level in SharePoint SQL backup databases? Use AvePoint's free tool: DocAve SQL Restore Controller.

It appears that being able to restore SharePoint data at the item level is a must-have for organizations. AvePoint is not the only software provider of this capability as we've told you already. Additional providers include MetaLogix, Double-Take, IBMs Tivoli and Microsoft's Own Data Protection Manager.

So how does this one from AvePoint work?

Full Fidelity Restore

The DocAve SQL Restore Controller comes as an independent module within the DocAve platform. It provides full fidelity restore of items, site and site collections within SharePoint for data both live and backed up with an SQL database backup solution (native or third party), including Microsoft's Data Protection Manager (DPM).

The free module is really designed for companies that have SharePoint deployed and are only using SQL backups to maintain data. These tend to be smaller organizations or ones that don't have a need for a full backup and administration solution for SharePoint, at least not yet.

Need Something More Robust?

The DocAve SQL Restore Controller doesn't have all the functionality that many organizations require for SharePoint administration and backup. Things like platform recovery, granular backups, IIS setting protection, SSP configurations, GAC protection and single sign on configurations aren't part of this solution.

If you need something that strong, AvePoint wants you to consider their DocAve Backup and Recovery Solution for SharePoint. In fact, AvePoint is very honest in saying that part of the reason this new tool is free is to make organizations aware of the wide range of offerings they have for SharePoint administration. This range of offers includes administration, data protection, replication, archiving, compliance, reporting and migration.

Dr. Tianyi (TJ) Jiang, AvePoint’s Chief Operating Officer also says, "Releasing it free of charge is a small way for us to say ‘thank you’ to the SharePoint community.”

You can download your copy of the DocAve SQL Restore Controller for free now and also try out a 30-day trial of the entire DocAve Software Platform. Don't worry, once your trial runs out, the free tool will still work.