04 Oct Moving SQL Servers

<Tea>

Over the summer I spent a couple of weeks in Mallorca on holiday, and whilst there prep’d up moving SQL servers (who needs a holiday when you work for yourself!).  Prepping all this was because one of my customers wanted to migrate all of their Project Server data (and associated WSS data) to a new SQL server.  This was primarily for support issues, but would hopefully have an additional performance benefit. 

Binging (who needs google anymore, bing appears to have caught up – will I have to pay for advertising with MS too?) moving project server databases gave a couple of technet articles – one for moving the four project databases to a new farm (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd857479.aspx )and one for moving all the WSS databases (oh and another for moving all MOSS databases).  None of them really worked for what I wanted, instead I collaborated with a certain Mr Smith and used standard sharepoint tools to move everything.  It took a few attempts (thank goodness for virtual machines, even in a prodn environment), but I got there.  In this case there were 3 Project Server instances.  Additionally I worked out how to move all the WSS content from one instance to another – okay, you WSS guys already know that, but it was new(ish) to me.

If you need to do something similar, preparation is key, as is a DR plan if it all goes pear shaped, and that can be caused by something as simple as a typo! 

If you need more info, drop me a line…

Enjoy…