preparing to migrate MOSS 2007 SP1 content into new server with MOSS 2007 SP2 with the same server name using builtin tools

Question

To All Experts here,

I'd like to perform a MOSS server content migration from the existing single instance server (SQL Server 2008, Windows Server 2008, SharePoint 2007 SP1) all in one and by maintaining the server name only, here's what I had in my migration plan document outline:

I have created the new Windows Server 2008 R2 + SQL Server 2008 SP1 and MOSS 2007 SP2 after that:

1. Backup MOSS_ContentDB from SQL Server 2008 SSMS (does this enough to cover all top level sites and its content in the library and doc. repository ?)

2. Backup all top level sites from CA site using the CA Sites backup and restore tools.

3. turn off the old MOSSDEV01 (current server)

4. rename the existing server (TempServ01) into MOSSDEV01 (so that the user bookmark and other link inside MOSS site still working)

5. perform restore of the DB

6. restore the site collection and its content from the backup

   is that the correct way to do it ?

I haven't execute the server configuration wizard to create the same port number of the SSP, CA and the SQL Server DB yet.

Any idea and suggestion would be greatly appreciated

Thanks.

Answer 1

Do it on a test server (or even VM) to ensure it works properly, but if I recall correctly, steps #2 and #6 are not necessary. After you restore the DB on the new server, you will just need to go into Central Admin and re-attach it. Since you will be on a newer version of MOSS, it will update your ContentDB once it is attached (and depending on the size, this may mean that you'll have to attach it using STSADM to avoid UI timeout issues using the stsadm -addcontentdb operation. (Reference here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263422.aspx).

Update: A nice step-by-step of the process here: http://elczara.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!554EC06D366AC9D5!580.entry?sa=799199873