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How can I create a replica Sharepoint installation on different server

We are a small company and run a Sharepoint server that I have used Acronis True Image to create an image and replicated to another server (exact same hardware). My question is if anybody knows how I go about changing things in Sharepoint so instead of using the original server name, I can use the new servers name to access? I want to be able to have an exact replica to do some test/development work on without interrupting the production server.

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SYSENG2007

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Walter Curtis

I agree with the above comment. Cloning SharePoint can get really messy. BUT, if you really really want to use a clone, I have successfully used clones but ONLY when they were in an isolated network segment and the AD infrastructure was also cloned. I had a copy of the farm including AD on an isolated island more or less. It worked fine, but takes probably more effort than just installing new and restoring the content databases. So try SYSENG2007's idea first I would think.

Hope that helps...

jb61264

ASKER

Thanks SYSENG2007 and SneekCo...our SP server is about as stand-alone as you can get I think. We are a very small facility and have SP and SQL Server installed on the same Dell PowerEdge 2900 (I have maxed out the RAM at 48GB and have two processors installed on it as well...I think that is what you mean by "isolated"?

I have another PowerEdge 2900 with two processors installed (not quite as much RAM...only 32GB) but only myself and two others will ever by accessing the server....I ran Acronis True Image backup on the first and then restored to the second (currently have the second not joined to our domain). However, of course now it has the same computer name, etc as the production server...so URL to production server that everyone uses is http://server1/home.aspx....I want to have the new test server be http://server2/home.aspx

Walter Curtis

Thanks for the info. By isolation I meant, total network isolation. The two environments should not be connected in any way nor communicate with each other, and the test environment should not talk to any resources on the live environment.

Since you want to have a different server name, the best bet may be to install the server new and attach the content database from the backup of the production farm. Just remember, if the copy still has some absolute links that are "hard coded", they will connect to the production farm if all is on the same network. that means, that someone may think they are using a resource in test and actually it connected to production. Could create confusion and issues, especially if someone goes delete happy and thinks they are deleting data in test, but are actually deleting in production.

Good luck...

Walter Curtis

Any luck?

jb61264

ASKER

SneekCo...thanks for the follow up, I am still working on it this morning. We use a Unitrends backup appliance and I'm trying to figure out how to restore a backup to a different machine other than the one the backup was created from...I may be making this more difficult than it needs to be but I've not dealt with SQL server databases so much in the past