Document Restore/Backup/Export

[jasonm]

I'm looking for a way to export all the documents from alfresco store back into their original file names i know there are a plethora of ways to export your data from a working alfresco. but before we can put it in production we want to have some export tools that dig into the database and can export all the .bin files with an index of original file name and meta data associated with the file

basically, if alfresco dies and or we hate it years down the road. we have a rock solid exit strategy.

[resplin]

Backing up and restoring Alfresco is well documented here:

http://docs.alfresco.com/5.0/concepts/ch-backup-restore.html

This is the preferred approach. Because Alfresco has an open source Community Edition, you can be confident that you can restore into a working version of Alfresco at any point in the future.

But there are lots of ways to get content out of Alfresco so you don't need a working version, if that provides you some peace of mind. Migration tools are a good approach. OpenMigrate is a good one:

https://addons.alfresco.com/addons/openmigrate

There were a couple of talks about migration at the last Alfresco Summit. But there was also an excellent lighting talk on how to export content from Alfresco. The slide deck is here:

http://summit.alfresco.com/san-francisco/sessions/lightning-talks-2

I will be linking the recording onto that page once I get it posted.

Another approach is to write a custom script that uses the CMIS API to export the content you want along with the metadata in the format you need.

Last thought, is that it is common for the document lifecycle to transfer content out of the system as the final step. So our Records Management module includes that as part of the disposition lifecycle. That is a good way to export specific items along with their metadata.

Good luck.

[mrogers]

Or copy the content out with ftp or CIFS or WebDav.

[gravitonian]

One way is to use Alfresco Bulk Export Tool, it will export all files, with the folder structure you have, and including the metadata for each file and folder.
Later on you can import all the files and folders with preserved metadata into another Alfresco installation with Alfresco Bulk Import tool