Migrating SharePoint Sites

SMIGRATE is a tool that can restore sites and move them from SharePoint Team Services (STS) into the new 2003 versions. It can also help you migrate sites from one server to another (or to the same server) in 2003 directly. This blog talks about using it for migration from a development environment to your production one (or test if you prefer).

SMIGRATE works wonders because a) it migrates all your data, including security and subsites b) you can execute it from any SharePoint server and restore to any server (you have to be SPS/WSS admin on both) c) is simple for moving all your hard work in development into acceptance or production. Using SMIGRATE is pretty straight forward.

To backup a website:

1. Enter the following at the command line:
   smigrate -w http://server[/site] -f filename.fwp -u domain\id -pw *
2. This will prompt you for your NT password. Enter it at the prompt.
3. Grab a coffee and wait.

To restore a site:

1. Create a new site through the portal site creation wizard. Note what the site url is.
2. When you get to the point of applying a template, stop and close the browser.
3. Enter the following at the command line from any SharePoint server (where siteurl is the url you used in step #1):
   smigrate -r -w siteurl -f filename.fwp -u domain\id -pw *
4. Enter your password.