move from standalone installation to a small farm (SharePoint Server 2010)

Question

One of our clients has a sharepoint standalone installation (few web apps with several site collections + user profile service, web analytics, search). They requested to move db to a new server. I'm requested to provide a solution and an estimation. As far as I understand we need to create a new farm with 2 server and move data there. So the question is:

What is the best approach to do it without using third party tools?

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

I am assuming this movement will SharePoint 2010 to 2010 specific and not 2007 to 2010 upgrade.

Well this a basic checklist you need to prepare before the movement.

Content Database

Custom Deployed WSP

Windows Services Setup , Config Files

Infopath Form Templates

Web Analytics Data

WSS Web Configuration Files

Web Application General Settings

Excel Services Trusted Locations

Backup Scripts

Deployment Repository

SQL jobs

Custom Database

Style Components (layouts 14)

Custom Navigation XML menu if used

SMTP Services references

Excel Services

Search Services

Reporting Services (reports if used , need to be consolidated before)

Web Analytics Services

Sequence should be like this

1. Prepare the farm with the required topology based on the assessment you have done for the current farm.

2. Install and configure sharepoint.

3. Plan for service application provisioning like Search , User Profile synchronization and Excel services , etc.

4. Replicate the information architecture (web applications creation only)

5. Deploy all custom solutions and dlls

6. Do a content database attachment once the solutions are deployed.

   1. Make the neccessary entries on the web config files of each web application if customizations are done on the current farm.

7. Verify the migration and site collections,data , list counts everything.

Please note that these are very generic steps but essential for any sort of migration in sharepoint.Additionally sharepoint configuration database will not be moved from standalone and you need recreate the new environment from scratch. Only content databases of web applications can be moved however im not really sure (from foundation to complete farm configuration) would be a bottleneck for this.