How to transfer a site collection from one database to another-SharePoint 2010

Guys- Few days back, I worked on one issue and would like share the experiences so that you can resolve it if you come across the same.

Problem Description:

We had two requirements:

1.   Stop creating site collections in existing databases

2.   Transfer some site collections from existing databases to new databases.

Let’s talk about the first scenario:

Stop creating site collections in existing databases

If you search in Google then you will get tons of results from many blogs/websites/forums/TechNet etc. Everybody is mentioning about ‘making the database offline’-let me tell you it’s very easy but I would recommend you that please don’t use this approach.

Here is the best approach that will be preferable to use across any conditions.

When you will open content database section in reference to any web application section then you will see following highlights:

-Name of the database

-Number of site collections exist

-Maximum number of site collections

-Minimum number of site collections

So yes-coming back to the main point…As we can see ‘how many site collections are currently holding by this database’ then we can restrict the entry by making proper changes in “maximum & minimum number of site collections”

That’s it-once you do this then you have applied the barrier to that DB and now its deadlocked. When you will create any new site collection now then it will go to new database.

CLEAN & SIMPLE J isn’t it?

Transfer some site collections from existing databases to new databases

Now coming back to second point, how to transfer the site collections from one DB to another. Many of us will give a thought (rocket serving thought J )that yes, it can be done by backup/restore, export/import!!!

If you are thinking like this then let me correct you that Microsoft has introduced some enhancements in the Power shell and it’s a point of one execution command only.  Let me refer you that TechNet article that reflects the same.

Power shell Command:

Move-SPSite http://servername/sites/sitename -DestinationDatabase ContentDb2

Note: This example moves the site collection http://servername/sites/sitename to the content database ContentDb2.

That’s it-Requirements fulfilled and we are done with this article J

If you have any queries/questions regarding the above mentioned information then please let me know.

I would be more than happy to help you as well as resolves your issues J

Reference: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff607915.aspx

Product applies to:

SharePoint Server 2010

Error 503 and unable to access the MOSS site

Problem Description:
Gets error 503 and unable to access the MOSS site anymore after installing a German language pack

Error Message:

503, service is unavailable

Farm Configuration:

Product / Version / Bit: SP2010/14.0.6335.0000/X64
Operating System / Service Pack/Bit: Win 2k8 R2 /SP2/X64
Configuration: 3 WFE
Hardware (Physical/virtual): Hyper-V
Database Used: SQL server 2008 R2

Troubleshooting Done:

1.   Tried accessing all the sites, just to make sure that the problem is restricted to one site or across the whole farm

2.   Reviewed SharePoint logs

3.   Checked event logs

4.   Checked the connectivity between SQL and SharePoint

5.   Checked the application pools are running or not

Cause:

§  Found out that the applications pools are all stopped and that’s why the sites not running.

§  It looks like when the language pack is installed and then the issue started happening.

Resolution:

§  Started the application pool one by one and tried accessing the sites

§  All sites are accessible now without any issues…

Additional Notes:

§  Noticed that one of the content DB (WSS_content_ABC) shows that a few sites are not upgraded to SharePoint 2010.

§  Detached the content Database and attached it back to the same web application, just to make sure that the DB gets upgraded.

Product Applies To:

§  SharePoint 2010

§  SharePoint 2007

If you have any queries/questions then please let me know, thank you.

What are the accounts used in SharePoint Foundation 2010 for a least privileged configuration

In Many Organization while Implementing  SharePoint 2010 . the first question which may arise is What are the account we need to create and what are the permission levels it should have . I have tried my best to collate the things together and text it in my Blog .


The setup account: This is the account with which the useris logged that runs the setup. This account must be a local administrator on all systems where SharePoint Foundation 2010 setup is run.

Post-Setup Configuration Run-As user: This is the user that runs the PSC tool.
This user must also be a local administrator
PSC runs a prerequisites check .
In addition to being a local administrator on all computers running Office Server, this account also has the following requirements on a remote server running SQL Server to be used as part of a SharePoint Foundation 2010 Services farm

Must be a SQL login
Must be a member of the SQL Server Database Creators Role
Must be a member of the SQL Server Security Administrators Role
This account need not be a local administrator on the server running SQL Server

Thisis the only account given explicit rights on SQL. It will give the database access account the SQL privileges it needs because it has the rights to do so.

The database access account: This is the account that is specified to the PSC tool when creating or connecting to a Configuration Database.
This account need not be the same as the PSC Run-As user and it need notbe a local administrator on any computer running Office Server.
It should also not be a local administrator on the SQL server, and doesnot require any SQL permissions in advance of creating a configuration database. Many of us refer to this as the “farm admin” account, but thisis misleading. The user that accesses the Central Admin Web pages to perform farm administrative activities is the farm admin account.

Central Admin App Pool ID:This account is “automatically” configured by the PSC tool to be the same account as the database access account that is stipulated to the PSC tool when creating a configuration database. This account and the SPTimer account constitute one exception to separate accounts being usedfor all account types.

The SPTimer account: As with the Central Admin App Pool ID, this account is “automatically” configured by the PSC tool to be the same account as the database accessaccount that is stipulated to the PSC tool when creating a configuration database.

The Farm Admin account: As mentioned earlier, this is the user that accesses the Central Admin Web pages to perform farm administrative functions.
This account can create Web applications, site collections, SSPs, configure Search, IFSS, Profile Imports, assigning permissions, and so on.

The following users do not have email address specified

Problem Description:

Unable to set alert on a List for single or multiple users

Error Message:

The following users do not have email address specified: <Username>

Probable cause:

The user’s profiles are not updated in SharePoint even though everything is setup up correctly in Active Directory and in Exchange.

Troubleshooting done:

1.   Checked if the user is stamped with an email address automatically.

2.   If the user's email address is set manually, need to remove the exchange attributes and reconnect the mailbox after running the cleanup agent in exchange, or create a new mailbox if there was no mailbox for the user in exchange server.

3.   Email address is stamped automatically by recipient update service (RUS) a component of exchange server and hence one should not add the email address manually.

4.   When configuring alert, check if the users email address is listed in the people picker. In this case the email address was not displayed; however the email address was stamped automatically by exchange. ( The affected user's email address was not

5.   displayed, but the user who was receiving alerts success had email address displayed in the people picker)

6.   Tried sending a test email from telnet to the affected user and it got delivered successfully which meant that the exchange was working fine.

Resolution:

1.   Went to Central Admin -> SSP -> User profiles and properties -> Configure profile import: The default access account was not specified.

2.   Hence gave the enterprise administrator and the password as the default access account.

3.   Then Selected Start Full import under SSP -> User profiles and properties.

4.   We were then able to see all the users with their email address in View user profiles.

5.   Then went to the SSP->Search Settings -> Content sources and Crawl schedules.

6.   Performed a Full crawl which completed successfully.

7.   We then selected the people picker and found that the all the users were displayed with their email address along with the affected user.

8.   We were then able to set the alert for that user successfully without getting any errors.

If you have any queries/questions regarding above mentioned information then please let me know, Thank you.

Applies to: SharePoint Server 2007-SP2