Move to another farm (Search Server 2008)

  • Article

Applies To: Microsoft Search Server 2008

 

Topic Last Modified: 2009-02-23

The following procedures will help you move a Microsoft Search Server 2008 deployment to another farm. Use these procedures to move a farm to the same configuration on identical computers in a different location. If you want to migrate a farm to a new configuration or equipment type, see Deploy a new server farm, then migrate content databases. For more information about the differences between moving, migrating, and upgrading a farm, and about which set of procedures apply most directly to your situation, see Move and migrate servers and server farms (Search Server 2008).

To help prevent loss of data and to minimize downtime, you should move a farm in stages. Each stage corresponds to a tier in the server hierarchy. For more information about Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies server architecture, see White paper: Office SharePoint Server farm architecture.

Each stage of moving a farm has different requirements and procedures. After you complete each stage of the move, you should test the farm operation to make sure that the move was successful. The stages are as follows:

  • Move the front-end Web servers.

  • Move the application servers.

  • Move the database server.

Move the front-end Web servers

Important

Be sure to document any customizations that have been made to the front-end Web servers so that you can configure the new servers the same way. Such customizations may include the following:

  • The %COMMONPROGRAMFILES%\Microsoft Shared\Web server extensions\12 directory.

  • Any customizations that are made to the Web.config file.

  • Default quota templates.

  • Blocked file types.

  • Administrator-deployed form templates.

  • Database names and locations.

  • Web application names and databases. Be sure to document the content database names associated with each Web application.

  • Crawler impact rules.

  • Activated features.

The first step in moving the front-end Web servers to their new location is to set up the destination servers. For each front-end Web server in the new farm, perform the Add a Web server to the farm procedure and connect the new server to the current databases. If you are moving an index server, perform the Add an index server to the farm procedure. If you are moving a query server, perform the Add an index server to the farm procedure.

As each new server comes online, you can remove the old servers by using the Remove a server from the farm procedure.

Move the application servers

Move the SSPs on the application servers by using the Move an SSP to another farm (Search Server 2008) procedure.

Move the database server

Move the databases by using the Move all databases (Search Server 2008) procedure.

See Also

Concepts

Move and migrate servers and server farms (Search Server 2008)
Move all databases (Search Server 2008)
Move an SSP to another farm (Search Server 2008)