I completed a production database move two days ago and sadly the process didn’t go down as documented on various technet sites. To cut a long story short, here are the steps I completed to successfully move the databases:
- Make a complete backup of the Site Collection that needs to be moved. This may be completed via the stsadm command: STSADM -o backup -url http://portal.domain.com -filename c:\backups\backup.bak;
- Disconnect all servers from the SharePoint farm using the SharePoint Configuration Wizard;
- Recreate the farm on the Central Administration Host using SharePoint Configuration Wizard. At this point, be sure to enter the details of the new SQL Server;
- Once the farm is created, execute the restore command for the Site Collection backed up in the first step: STSADM -o restore -url http://portal.domain.com -filename c:\backups\backup.bak; (Ensure you have alternate mappings configured when using DNS at this point)
- Recreate Shared Services Provider (in a multi server farm, ensure that all servers have been added before completing this step as the Index Server needs to be configured before this step);
- Once this has been recreated, you will need to configure the following: Profile Import, Search, Usage Analysis, Diagnostic Logging.
This process worked for me, but I’m pretty sure there is an easier way to do this as the reconfiguring of the SSP can work for a smallish environment but is not feasible where search and other entities have been heavily configured to deliver additional value.
