Can we restore a corrupted farm from the backups we have for sharepoint databases

[john john]

One of our customers use to have a sharepoint enterprise farm 2013, with the following architecture:-

1. windows 2008 R2 which contain sharepoint on-premises farm 2013.

2. windows 2008 R2 which contain Sql Server.

Our customer was backup-ing the sharepoint databases on daily basis, while the sharepoint application server was not backup-ed or even tracked. and the application server had a sever damage and they could not restore it. so now our customer have a full backup for all the sharepoint databases including; content database, managed metadata databases, configuration database, etc...

But per my knowledge is that to be able to integrate a new sharepoint farm with existing databases, the farm need to be on the same farm build number + have the same sharepoint patches installed as the source farm... but in our customer case these info (farm build number + patches involved) are not available.

So i have these 2 questions:-

1. Is there a way from the databases' backups we have to build a new farm which works on these databases?

2. Now our customer have a valid license for sharepoint and the windows server, so can we open a ticket with Microsoft regarding this? and will Microsoft cover such scenarios? where we need to build a new SharePoint farm which work on existing databases?

[#2]

@john john 

• since only your application server is down , you can join a new server to the farm and force all application services to run on the new server.
• if your concern that ca is on the app server, you can run the psconfig on any of the other sharepoint server and setup the ca on the server

if you plan to spin a new farm, except the config dB you should be able to restore most of the service application and all content databases. 

If if you are rebuilding a complete farm, and you need the build version number, restore the config dB on a test sql server and query the config dB. Direct querying the prod sharepoint sql databases are not supported so suggesting restoring it to a test sql database.

[#3]

@Maruthi Gaddethanks for your useful reply, please find my comments on your points:-

since only your application server is down , you can join a new server to the farm and force all application services to run on the new server.

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I am not sure what do you exactly mean by join a new server to the farm? now the only application server they have can not be used anymore as it had a sever damage. So are you saying that i need to create a new VM and install sharepoint inside it?if the answer is yes, then i need the sharepoint to have the same patches as the damaged server, and this info is not available, as mentioned on my question.

if your concern that ca is on the app server, you can run the psconfig on any of the other sharepoint server and setup the ca on the server

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yes the Central admin is on the application server which had the sever damage .. not sure if i got your point correctly..

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if you plan to spin a new farm, except the config dB you should be able to restore most of the service application and all content databases.

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yes i think i will need to create a new application server, which will have the Central admin and all the other application services; search, managed metadata, etc.. i do not think we have any other option.. is this correct? also i am not sure what do you mean by `except the config dB`?

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If if you are rebuilding a complete farm, and you need the build version number, restore the config dB on a test sql server and query the config dB. Direct querying the prod sharepoint sql databases are not supported so suggesting restoring it to a test sql database.

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but will the config DB contain the info about the patches we need to install to get an exact copy of the damaged application server?