Moving site collection from one Virtual machine to another

Question

I have a SharePoint 2010 Site Collection in a Virtual Machine. I want to move it to another VM that has SharePoint 2010 installed. What's the procedure for that. Thanks a lot.

Mayank

Answer 1

Are you talking about you have two separate farms?

If that is the case, if the Site Collection is the only thing in the content database, you can simply backup and restore the database to the secondary farm's SQL Server, and finally use Mount-SPContentDatabase to attach it to a Web Application.

If there is more than one Site Collection in the content database and you only want to move one of the Site Collections, then use Export-SPWeb and Import-SPWeb.

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SharePoint - Nauplius Applications
Microsoft SharePoint Server MVP
MCITP: SharePoint Administrator 2010

Answer 2

In addition:

Instead of using the Export-SPWeb and Import-SPWeb, you should use Backup-SPSite and Restore-SPSite as Export-SPWeb will only export sites, not site collections.

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Nico Martens - MCTS, MCITP
SharePoint 2010 Infrastructure Consultant / Trainer