In some cases, you may want to move a site collection between servers. You may have developed a BrightWork site collection in your dev or staging machine and now you want to move the site with data to your production server. This article covers the complete process in some easy steps.

1. *Backup a Site collection with PowerShell command

*You may have already received a backup file (.bak) to restore. If so please skip to the next step, step 2.

We do this to take a copy of the entire site collection which will include all of your sites, lists, projects, templates, and content.

In SharePoint 2010 PowerShell command Backup-SPSite is used for taking backup. Backup-SPSite -Identity https://myserver -Path “c:backupfile.bak”

NOTE: SharePoint Patch/Cumulative Update level 

Server A where the file is being backed up must be equal to or post the patch /cumulative update level of Server B where it is being restored. If Server B had an older patch /cumulative update level then the destination Server A, you will receive an error when attempting to restore.

In SharePoint 2013 Server A and Server B must have a cumulative update level equal to each other. If the destination server is at a higher or lower CU level, you will receive an error when attempting to restore.

2. Restore a Site Collection with PowerShell command

To restore site collection you’ll use the following command. Add –Force if you want to overwrite the existing site collection with the same name.
Restore-SPSite -Identity https://myserver -Path “c:backupfile.bak”
You may also want to restore to a specific content database. If so you can use the following parameter.
Restore-SPSite https://myserver -Path “c:backupfile.bak” -DatabaseServer mysqlserver -DatabaseName mydatabasename
For more on PowerShell commands, see the Restore-SPSite document from Microsoft. 

3. *Remove users if necessary from the restored BrightWork site collection

*This is only necessary if the server you backed up the site collection from is severed by a different active directory then the server you’re restoring the site collection to. This requires two steps. Skip to point 4. if this does not apply to you

a:) In central administration change your site collection administrators for the site you just restored.

b:) Remove the users from the restored site collection. Firstly you must be logged on with site collection admin rights. Then you want to remove the default.aspx from your url https://sitecollectiondomain.com/sites/sitecollectionname/default.aspx      …

which leaves you with

https://sitecollectiondomain.com/sites/sitecollectionname/

Now add the following hidden view portion to the url…

_layouts/people.aspx?MembershipGroupId=0

which leaves you with a complete url. https://sitecollectiondomain.com/sites/sitecollectionname/_layouts/people.aspx?MembershipGroupId=0

Hit Enter. You will now see the hidden view and the list of all users in the site collection. Select all the users excluding your site collection administrators you just added earlier in this blog and delete.

4. Re-apply your logo

Navigate to the root of the site collection and then click on Site actions, site settings, and choose Title, Description, and Logo under Look and Feel. Add the URL of your logo.

5. *Indicator Icons

*Only required if you have knowingly built custom icons on the server you just moved from.

If so you must copy these files from that server. You will find these located at Drive:Program FilesCommon FilesMicrosoft Sharedweb server extensions14TEMPLATEIMAGES

Read more: BrightWork Choice Icon Column. 

6. Quick Launch Links

Check your sites for integrity and make sure that all quick launch links go to the desired target. If static addresses were used when links were created then they will still point to the old server. Relative paths are desirable when creating these types of links.

You have now completed the task.

Hope this helps, JB.

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