Migrating Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) from Standalone to Farm Install
Introduction
Installing Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) in Standalone is useful to be able to quickly deploy MOSS on a single server computer. A Standalone configuration is best suited for a small number of web sites and installing with a minimal amount of administrative steps as well as being able to do evaluation or testing of the product before full deployment.
This document is targeted for IT Professionals that wish to migrate an existing MOSS Standalone installation to a MOSS Server Farm. There is no direct upgrade path available to go from Standalone to Farm, this article will describe how to migrate existing data from the Standalone installation to a new Farm installation.
For more information about installing Office SharePoint Server 2007 as Standalone: http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/bd99c3a9-0333-4c1c-9793-a145769e48e61033.mspx?mfr=true
There are a couple of different options for migrating from a Standalone installation to a new Farm installation:
1. SQL Backup/Restore from the Standalone installation to the Farm and STSADM.exe commands to attach the databases
2. Central Administration Backup/Restore from the Standalone installation to the Farm installation
This article will describe the first step which involves using SQL backup/restore and STSADM.exe commands to attach the restored database to migrate from Standalone to Farm.
For more information about using Central Admin to perform a Backup/Restore: http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/054c3d6d-a0d3-448a-864b-93db6283d7ce1033.mspx?mfr=true
The sequence of steps for migrating from Standalone to Farm is:
1. Install the MOSS Farm Server and associated SQL Server
2. Use SQL tools to backup and restore the databases from the Standalone installation to the SQL Server associated with the Farm
3. Use the STSADM.exe commands to attach the restored databases to the new Farm installation
Complete Farm Installation and SQL Server
Complete the Farm installation and SQL Server installation either via the Setup UI or the command-line installation including running the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard to create the Central Administration site.
For more information about installing Office SharePoint Server 2007 as Server Farm: http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/776589ed-aba4-47eb-8c4d-86905ac11a511033.mspx?mfr=true
At this point the Central Administration site will have been created but no other sites should be added.
Migrating Data from the Standalone Installation
When you install MOSS in Standalone, as part of the installation steps Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition is installed. Since Farm installation will use SQL Server we will need to migrate the existing data from the Standalone install to the SQL Server that will be associated with the new Farm Installation using either:
1. SQL Server Management Studio Express (on the Standalone installation)
2. SQL Server Management Studio (on the SQL Server that will be associated with the Farm installation)
This article will describe the method to use SQL Server Management Studio Express to migrate the SQL data and the method to migrate using SQL Server will be similar.
SQL Server Management Studio Express is installed by running the setup program for either SQL Server Express with Advanced Services or SQL Server Express Toolkit.
To download SQL Server Management Studio Express: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/express/bb410791.aspx
For more information about managing SQL Server Express: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2005/mgsqlexpwssmse.mspx
These are the sequence of steps to migrate data:
1. Set the Standalone databases to be read-only so that no additional data can be added
a. In Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio, right-click the name of the database that you want to set to read-only, and then click Properties.
b. In the left pane, click Options.
c. In the right pane, under Other options, under State, next to Database Read-Only, click the down arrow, and then select True.
2. Use SQL Server Management Studio to connect to the Standalone server (note that the SQL Express instance name will be set by default to be OfficeServers) and perform a backup of these databases:
a. Shared Services DB
b. Shared Services Search DB
c. Shared Services Content DB
d. WSS Content DB
e. Any additional content databases associated with new web applications created
3. Restore these backups to the SQL Server associated with the Farm installation
For more information about migrating databases: http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/d0a50e40-5322-4f7a-a3a4-c4660c8796661033.mspx?mfr=true
STSADM.exe Command Line Tool
The STSADM.exe admin tool is available in the default location: c:\program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\12\bin. To see what actions are available with the tool you can run STSADM.exe –help which will output the operations that can be performed and STSADM.exe –help <operation name> to get more detailed documentation about a particular operation.
For more information about the STSADM.exe command:
http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/188f006d-aa66-4784-a65b-a31822aa13f71033.mspx
More details about STSADM.exe command-line operations and parameters:
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/wss/2/all/adminguide/en-us/stsk02.mspx?mfr=true
STSADM.exe to Attach the Databases to the New Farm
The STSADM.exe admin tool will be used to attach the Standalone databases that have been restored to the Farm SQL Server so that the site content (including the Shared Services Provider) will be available on the new Farm installation.
Start and Configure the Required Services
Start the Windows SharePoint Services Search:
stsadm -o spsearch -action start -farmserviceaccount Redmond\user -farmservicepassword MyPassword
Start the Office SharePoint Server Search service:
stsadm -o osearch -action start -role IndexQuery -farmserviceaccount Redmond\user -farmservicepassword MyPassword -farmcontactemail user@ms.com
Create and Attach the Shared Services Provider Content
Create the web application and associate the Shared Services Content database from the Standalone installation by first creating a web application for the Shared Services Provider and specifying the content database that was restored.
For example:
stsadm.exe -o extendvs -url http://intranet:8080 -ownerlogin redmond\user -owneremail
a@b.com -exclusivelyusentlm -databaseserver SQLServer -databasename SharedServices1_Content -apcreatenew -apidname SSP_Apppool -apidtype configurableid -apidlogin redmond\user -apidpwd MyPassword
Note that the databasename parameter is the Shared Services Content database that was restored from the Standalone installation.
The Standalone installation will use the default web application for the MySite host. When migrating to a Farm installation it is recommended that the MySite host resides on a separate web application than the root top-level site collection web application.
TODO: Note that we need a way to extract the MySite data created on the WSS_Content database and move this to a separate content database. A new web application will be created and this will serve as the MySite host.
To create the SSP we use the restoressp command with the sspdatabasename and searchdatabasename parameters set as the databases that were restored from the Standalone installation.
For example:
STSADM.EXE -o restoressp -title Migrated_SSP -url http://intranet:8080 -ssplogin redmond\user -ssppassword MyPassword -mysiteurl http://intranet/MySite -indexserver intranet -indexlocation "D:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers\12.0\Data\Applications" -sspdatabaseserver intranet -sspdatabasename SharedServices1 -searchdatabaseserver intranet -searchdatabasename SharedServices1_Search
Again note that the sspdatabasename and searchdatabasename parameters are the databases that were restored as these will now be attached to the Shared Services Provider for the Farm installation.
Content Database Attach for Sites
Finally, we will do the same step for any other sites that were created on the Standalone installation.
For example to restore the top-level site collection that also contains the MySite content:
STSADM.EXE -o extendvs -url http://intranet -ownerlogin redmond\user -owneremail user@ms.com -exclusivelyusentlm -databaseserver intranet -databasename WSS_Content -apcreatenew -apidname SharePoint_80_AppPool -apidtype configurableid -apidlogin redmond\user -apidpwd MyPassword
As before the databasename parameter is the restored database from the Standalone installation that will now be attached to the top-level site.
