In a nutshell, can someone provide the recommended SharePoint backupsthat should be taken and using what tools? And if one of these isSQLServer backups, how do you restore an individual site from thisbackup, if possible
Using stsadm.exe this is best method to take backup and restore .it will create ony one .dat file just restore it but it shuold be top level site.
That coupled with SPSBACKUP will make a nice backup strategy.If you look at the resource kit, there's a script in there that loops through the top level site collections and backs up all top level sites to a folder. Its really a good script to work off of.