Restore site collections with other web application

Question

Scenario:

• SP 2007 stand-alone farm

• Content_DB full backup

I'd like to know wheather for restoring a site collec., instead of using a recovery farm., I could better use a new web app in the same farm.

For examplie, I need site collec. A (scA) from Content_DB backup:

1) create web app 2, equal to web app 1, only with different port.

2) restore backup of Content_DB on web app 2, as Content_DB_2

3) backup scA from web app 2

4) Restore scA in web app1

In this way I could also think of having a live running recovery web app (web app 2), which runs a copy of content_db backup at a certain time. This live copy can be accessed for recovery purposes.

I know that such configuration might be heavier for the server, but I want just to know if the change of web app can compromise the restore of the site collections.

Thanks

Answer 1

The bad news is that you won't be able to make that work. In SharePoint 2007, you can't attach a back of a content database if there is another instance of that content database still attached to a web application in the farm. The problem is that there are specific GUIDs (unique identifiers) that SharePoint 2007 looks for within the content database backup that would be the same as the ones in the version of the database currently attached to the production farm. If you attach the backup to the farm, even in a different web application, you won't be able to access any of the the site collections in it and see several errors in your logs to that effect.

In SharePoint 2010 you would be able to do this with the Unattached Content Database restore functionality, but in SharePoint 2007 you're going to have to do one of two things to get the site collection back up you need:

1. Build a completely separate recovery farm, restore the content database to it, and extract the site collection from it via a site collection backup. Then bring that site collection into your production farm
2. Detach the current content database from the production SharePoint 2007 farm, then attach the backup version to it so you can do a site collection backup of it and restore it into a different content database.

John