We've got a couple of SQL Server 2005 databases we will be moving to a new production server soon. These databases aren't massive but big enough to make it a tricky to do so with as little downtime as possible.
The three databases that will be moved first since they are the most criticall are 5, 9 and 25 gig in size (data only without logs).
Now there are a few possibilities but since i am not a full fledged DB i thought maybe some people here might have better ideas/suggestions. Here is what we came up with;
* Create a full backup, move the file and restore the backup.
This is possible but since the databases are rather big this would mean some pretty serious (couple of hours) of downtime of the system since the databases need to be moved.
Is it possible to create and restore a backup today, and then do a differential restore when we make the actual move? The problem i can find so far with differential restores is that those always get added to a FULL backup which would leave the files the same size and not reduce downtime due to moving the files from server to server.
To make this "more" tricky the new database will be configured to mirror, where the old environment is not mirrored. Meaning i'd have to restore the differential backup on the principle server (i don't think this should cause problems but i thought i'd ask.)
If there is another, easier or better way to do this with the least downtime i'd love to hear it aswell ofcoarse.
I posted this on stackoverflow an it got pointed out to me that i should have asked this question here so i am posting it here now.
A user there replied simply with "You can use mirroring to do this"
Without going into alot of details, the way i see this i can create a mirror on the new principle, i then force the mirror to take over from the old production server, i then disable the mirroring and reenable the mirroring to the new mirror server.
Would it work like that?
