Examining the Database Attach Scenario

The database attach upgrade process works off of a completely different concept. With this approach, you build the new SharePoint 2010 environment on completely different hardware and configure it to best practices. You have the option of completely rebuilding all farm aspects and can even have the new SharePoint environment serve as a farm target for multiple source farms of various versions (WSS, MOSS Standard, MOSS Enterprise). When the migration is ready to take place, it is done one content database at a time and is performed by attaching the database (or a restore of the database) to the new farm and upgrading it on that farm.

The significant advantage to this approach is that it is much more forgiving if there are errors, and it allows for easy fallback to the old farm if the migration fails. In addition, for larger and more complex environments, it allows for a phased-migration process, rather than the need to do a “big-bang” upgrade. The main disadvantage to this approach is that it migrates only content and does not migrate any farm settings, such as audiences or custom search settings. More on this scenario is presented in later sections of this chapter.