Share site subscription ID's across farms - possible?

Question

Hi everyone,

Is it possible to share a site subscription across farms?

This is the current situation:

We've extended a farm (farm A) with a second content farm (farm B), which has different site collections. This was one of the requirements (seperating them in different farms). Each farm has site subscriptions assigned to them (to the site collections that are present on that farm).

The search service application is setup in partioned mode, due to the fact that the site collections contain subscriptions.

Now, it's not possible to combine the search results because they're two different 'tenants'. One of the biggest issues with subscriptions is that they cannot be removed without first fully backing up/restoring the sites (or is there any other way?).

But let's say the site subscription is removed: can it use the one from farm A (share it)? Or do all the site subscriptions need to be removed (resulting in a big hassle!)

Hopefully someone can help me with this issue, thanks!

With kind regards,

M. Hekman

Answer 1

Hi 

Please reference these two resources:

http://steve.thelineberrys.com/following-sites-across-farms-with-sharepoint-2013-mysites/

http://www.sharepointnadeem.com/2013/12/sharepoint-share-search-service.html

Answer 2

Hi Tina0327,

Thanks for the quick reply! The resources you're pointing to aren't useable in this scenario, because:

First: the trust is there already (I've already done the steps mentioned there) - they're sharing some service applications already across farms.

Second: nothing is mentioning the site subscriptions (placing site collections in tenants with partitioned service applications).

So the problem is: how to remove the tenants without backing up/restoring sites or how can they get each others tenant ID.

With kind regards,

M. Hekman

Answer 3

Hi M. Hekman

First, restore site collection using restore-spsite on target farm. Next, fetch existing site subscription in a variable using get-spsitesubscription and then set it on the restored site collection using set-spsitesubscription. Here's are quick dirty commands to give you idea:

$setSubscription = Get-SPSiteSubscription $existingsiteurl

Restore-SPSite $destinationsiteurl -Path "D:\$tenantAlias\siteurl.bak" -Force -HostHeaderWebApplication $appserverURL -Confirm:$false -ContentDatabase "TenantContent_$tenantAlias"

Set-SPSite -Identity $destinationsiteurl -SiteSubscription $setSubscription -Confirm:$false -Force

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Thanks
Mohit

Answer 4

Hi mohit.goyal,

Ok, that's when we move the site collection to the farm hosting the search application. But what I mentioned ealier is that they need to be on seperate farms (content farms).

The idea is good, but is there any form of copying the site subscription to a farm instead of placing everything on the same farm and then copying it?

Thanks!

M. Hekman

Answer 5

These commands are valid for any target farm. I do it all the time. :)

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Thanks
Mohit

Answer 6

Ah, so if I'm correct you mean the following:

1. On farm B, backup the site collection and restore it back on farm B (thus removing the site subscription ID).

2. On farm A, get the site subscription ID we want to use (Get-SPSiteSubscription)

3. Publish/push it to farm B via the Set-SPSite (from farm A) PowerShell command.

Does that work cross web application / cross farm or do I have to do something first to use that?

Answer 7

Let me clear my steps again: 

1. Take backup of site collection from source farm (say farm A)

2. Restore site collection using restore-spsite on target farm (say farm B).

3. Fetch existing site subscription in a variable using get-spsitesubscription (on farm B)

4. Set it on the restored site collection using set-spsitesubscription(on farm B)

Please dont pay attention to variable names i put in commands. They are just written in hurry. 

Please put farm A and farm B as per your need. This method works cross farm. Hope I'm making it clear. 

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Thanks
Mohit

Answer 8

Ok, then this isn't a solution for our problem.

We need to copy it across farms, if that's not possible, then we need to try to remove the site subscription ID's from both farms. Via this way we can enable the search results from both farms then. If not, then we cannot share the search service application (due to the tenants) and need to create dedicated applications per farm then.

Answer 9

That's right. Currently, there is no way to utilize sitesubscription id across farms. 

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Thanks
Mohit