Creating a new user profile service application with exisiting databases

Question

Is it possible to create a new user profile service application and use the exisitng the databases from a previous user profile service application? Both service applications are in the same farm.

I want to preserve profile and social data.

Answer 1

I have done this more then few times on my development machine (!)

You just delete old user profile service but without checking Delete data associated with the Service Applications.

Then you create new user profile service and for Profile Database, Synchronization Database and Social Tagging Database you provide same database names. If you used default values you don't need to change anything (Profile DB, Sync DB, Social DB).

I don't see any possible issues if you are doing this on same farm and with existing databases. But again, I have tested this only on my development environment!

Addition

Here is step-by-step guide on how to recreate User Profile service with PowerShell:

• SharePoint 2010 Restore–User Profile Service Error

And here is solution to invalid Sync DB (MSDN forums):

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/da/sharepoint2010setup/thread/ae41dcd1-28d3-4832-91b9-b4a3841aedbc

This supported the idea that the UserProfile Service Application's Sync process was indeed "jacked up". To rectify this issue, I simply did not include the switch to reference the existing sync database (in the powershell command). By doing so, a new Sync database was created. At this point, I was able to start the Profile Synchronization service on one of the SP Servers and then able to create new connections to our AD Forest. Resolved my issue and kept all of the social content and the user's profile data (the intent).

So when creating 'new' User Profile Service you can simply create new Sync DB and everything will work as expected.