How to migrate a site collection and the related term store toward another farm?

Question

I am using SP2013 on-premise standard edition. In a site collection we have built a local term set group with 100+ termsets. We are going to use Backup-SPSite & Restore-SPSite to copy this site collection to another SP2013 farm. As far as I understand, the local term set group is not saved in the content DB. It is saved in managed metadata DB.

How should I copy the term set group towards the new farm? I cannot directly backup/restore the managed metadata DB because the destination DB contains termsets from other site collections and we should not override it. Also we don't have DB access.

If I export the termsets into CSV and import to new environment, the terms' GUID will be changed. Then I have to go over every library and list to fix the 100+ managed metadata column.

May I have your advice on this situation? Thanks.

Answer 1

I successfully did it by following this blog post:

Source SP Farm - Windows Azure SharePoint Server 2013 VM.

Destination SP Farm - SharePoint Server 2013 VM.

http://blog.kuppens-switsers.net/sharepoint/migrate-managed-metadata-between-farms/?subscribe=success#blog_subscription-3

Note: First migrate term store and then Backup/Restore site collection.

Finally Change site collection administrators of restored site collection from Central Administration (CA).

Here are detailed steps:

http://blog.kuppens-switsers.net/sharepoint/migrate-managed-metadata-between-farms/

Step 1 - Export Term Store script

$mmsApplication = Get-SPServiceApplication | ? {$_.TypeName -eq "Managed Metadata Service"}
$mmsProxy = Get-SPServiceApplicationProxy | ? {$_.TypeName -eq "Managed Metadata Service Connection"}
Export-SPMetadataWebServicePartitionData $mmsApplication.Id -ServiceProxy $mmsProxy -Path "C:\MMS\mmsdata.cab"

Step 2 - Import script

$mmsApplication = Get-SPServiceApplication | ? {$_.TypeName -eq "Managed Metadata Service"}
$mmsProxy = Get-SPServiceApplicationProxy | ? {$_.TypeName -eq "Managed Metadata Service Connection"}
Import-SPMetadataWebServicePartitionData $mmsApplication.Id -ServiceProxy $mmsProxy -Path "C:\MMS\mmsdata.cab" -OverwriteExisting

Step 3 - Backup site

Backup-SPSite -Identity "http://sp2103dev/sites/abc/" -Path "C:\MMS\sitetoarchive.bak"

Step 4 - Restore site

Restore-SPSite -Identity "http://sp2013/sites/xyz" -Path "C:\MMS\sitetoarchive.bak" -force

Step 5 - Note

After site restore we need to change site collection administrator(s) in Central Admin so that these users can access the site.

Answer 2

Go for the export and import of the term set and then fix the existing items with a PowerShell script. The script should lookup the term in the term store given the text of an old term. Then it should assign the correct term with a new id. Hope it does make sense. I have a PowerShell script for that and if noone else posts an answer, I will upload it here once I get access to it (later in the day).

Answer 3

Your best bet is using powershell script to export and import the term set as Paul mentioned.

Here are script.

To Export

Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.Powershell
 $metadataApp= Get-SpServiceApplication | ? {$_.TypeName -eq "Managed Metadata Service"}
 $mmsAppId = $metadataApp.Id

 $mmsproxy = Get-SPServiceApplicationProxy | ?{$_.TypeName -eq "Managed Metadata Service Connection"}
 Export-SPMetadataWebServicePartitionData -Identity $mmsAppId -ServiceProxy $mmsproxy -Path "C:\Users\Desktop\MMD.cab”

To Import

Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.Powershell
 $metadataApp= Get-SpServiceApplication | ? {$_.TypeName -eq "Managed Metadata Service"}
 $mmsAppId = $metadataApp.Id

 $mmsproxy = Get-SPServiceApplicationProxy | ?{$_.TypeName -eq "Managed Metadata Service Connection"}

Import-SPMetadataWebServicePartitionData -Identity $mmsAppId -ServiceProxy $mmsproxy -Path "//SharedPath/Users/Desktop/MMD.cab" -OverwriteExisting;

Source: Migrating Managed Metadata Term Stores in SharePoint Server across Farms