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Support for changes to the databases that are used by Office server products and by Windows SharePoint Services

Article ID: 841057 - View products that this article applies to.

INTRODUCTION

The Microsoft Office server products that are listed in the "Applies to" section store data in Microsoft SQL Server databases. These products use various stored procedures for regular processing. Therefore, the Microsoft SQL Server databases are important to the successful operation of these products.

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More information

The products that are listed in the "Applies to" section were tested by using a database structure as designed by the SharePoint Development Team and were approved for release based on that structure. Microsoft cannot reliably predict the effect to the operation of these products when parties other than the Microsoft SharePoint Development Team or Microsoft SharePoint Support agents make changes to the database schema, modify its data, or execute ad hoc queries against the SharePoint databases. Exceptions are described in the "Supported Database Modifications" section.

Examples of unsupported database changes include, but are not limited to, the following:

Adding database triggers
Adding new indexes or changing existing indexes within tables
Adding, changing, or deleting any primary or foreign key relationships
Changing or deleting existing stored procedures
Calling existing stored procedures directly, except as described in the SharePoint Protocols documentation
(http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc339475.aspx)
Adding new stored procedures
Adding, changing, or deleting any data in any table of any of the databases for the products that are listed in the "Applies to" section
Adding, changing, or deleting any columns in any table of any of the databases for the products that are listed in the "Applies to" section
Making any modification to the database schema
Adding tables to any of the databases for the products that are listed in the "Applies to" section
Changing the database collation
Running DBCC_CHECKDB WITH REPAIR_ALLOW_DATA_LOSS (However, running DBCC_CHECKDB WITH REPAIR_FAST and REPAIR_REBUILD is supported, as these commands only update the indexes of the associated database.)
Enabling SQL Server change data capture (CDC)
Enabling SQL Server transactional replication
Enabling SQL Server merge replication

If an unsupported database modification is discovered during a support call, the customer must perform one of the following procedures at a minimum:

Perform a database restoration from the last known good backup that did not include the database modifications
Roll back all the database modifications

If a previous version of the database that does not include the unsupported modifications is unavailable, or if the customer cannot roll back the database modifications, the customer must recover the data manually. The database must be restored to an unmodified state before Microsoft SharePoint Support can provide any data migration assistance.

If it is determined that a database change is necessary, a support case should be opened to determine whether a product defect exists and should be addressed.

Supported database modifications

Exceptions to the prohibition against database modifications are made for specific usage scenarios:

Operations that are initiated from the SharePoint administrative user interface
SharePoint specific tools and utilities that are provided directly by Microsoft (for example, Ststadm.exe)
Changes that are made programmatically through the SharePoint Object Model and that are in compliance with the SharePoint SDK documentation
Activities that are in compliance with the SharePoint Protocols documentation
(http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc339475.aspx)

Additionally, in rare circumstances during a support incident, Microsoft SharePoint Support agents may give customers scripts that modify the databases that are used by the products that are listed in the "Applies to" section. In these cases, all modifications are reviewed by the SharePoint Development Team to ensure that the operations being performed will not result in an unstable or unsupported database state. Database changes that are made with the guidance of a Microsoft SharePoint Support agent during the course of a support incident will not result in an unsupported database state. Customers may not reapply the scripts or changes provided by Microsoft SharePoint Support outside of a support incident.

Read operations addendum

Reading from the SharePoint databases programmatically, or manually, can cause unexpected locking within Microsoft SQL Server which can adversely affect performance. Any read operations against the SharePoint databases that originate from queries, scripts, .dll files (and so on) that are not provided by the Microsoft SharePoint Development Team or by Microsoft SharePoint Support will be considered unsupported if they are identified as a barrier to the resolution of a Microsoft support engagement.

If unsupported read operations are identified as a barrier to the resolution of support engagement, the database will be considered to be in an unsupported state. To return the database to a supported state, all unsupported read activities must stop.

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References

For more information about support for changes to the databases that are used by SharePoint and related Office Server products, review the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

932744

(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932744/ )

Information about the Maintenance Plan Wizard in SQL Server 2005 and about tasks that administrators can perform against SharePoint databases

930887

(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/930887/ )

You experience issues with portal alerts in SharePoint Portal Server 2003 or with search performance in SharePoint Server 2007 after you create SQL Server 2005 maintenance plans

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