One of the power of Microsoft CRM is that you can have a complete CRM solution "in-house" and many times this is a key to win against competitors.
When you have customers that have an IT department involved on managing the CRM server, remember to explain them the right way to make the CRM database backups, otherwise you could have problems in the future.
You've to remember that a Microsoft CRM database is composed of a data DB and a Metabase DB, so the right backup strategy is composed of these steps:
- Make a complete backup of the xxxx_MSCRM database (the data DB).
- Make a complete backup of the xxxx_METABASE database (the Metabase repository)
- Export all your CRM customizations (including Sitemap and ISV.config) to an XML file by using the built-in CRM export tool
- If you have custom assemblies that works with CRM (for example Callouts etc.), backup the directory where they are installed (normally it's under the Microsoft CRM\Server\bin\assembly folder) and remember to save also any ASP.NET page that interacts with your CRM forms (otherwise you can have errors on IFRAMEs that calls the pages).
These are the essential steps that permits you to save your CRM server and easily migrate it on another system.