Replicate a Web Application in sharepoint 2010 to a different farm

Question

I have to replicate an existing web application and build it on a different farm in a different SharePoint server (version 2010). I have never even created and configured a complete web application so far. Could anyone help on what all information I need to collect and how can I do this? So far I have picked out that below things to be done,

1. Create a Web application in the second farm with the required account configuration
2. Take a backup of the databases from 1st webapp and restore it on the db server of second webapp.
3. Install the wsp solutions
4. Configure necessary services which are specifically created for those webapps.
5. IIS app pool configuration

The above could be wrong, please help me out.

Answer 1

Your steps looks good, I would make sure following things.

1. As you are using the Database Mounting method, I would make sure that dev farm version level should be same or higher( mount contentDatabase will upgrade to higher version).
2. Web Applications configuration means, any change in web.config file, Object cache Settings(if configured), Authentication method
3. IIS bindings
4. when you will create the web app, app pool will be created so no change should required.

Answer 2

Those are good steps. In order to mount your database to the new Web Application in the development environment, use Mount-SPContentDatabase on the dev SharePoint server. This will automatically assign the appropriate permissions to the restored Content Database.

I would install the WSP(s) prior to mounting the Content Database. Not strictly required, but it will give you a cleaner mount.

IIS Application Pools should not be adjusted directly.