How do I move a Sitecore 9.1 instance from one computer to another?

Question

I have a working Sitecore 9.1 instance on my local laptop. I would like to move it from my laptop to a server.

Is there a preferred method for doing this? I can backup the Core, Master and Web databases. And I can zip up the website root. Is it just a matter of restoring the 3 databases to the SQL Server on the server and then unzipping the website root folder?

I know that I would also need to modify my connection strings possibly. And my Solr cores may be named differently on the server. So I might need to go through my config files and edit the Solr core names to match the cores that are already on the server.

Is there more to it than that? Is there a different method that I should use to move a Sitecore 9.1 instance?

Answer 1

The safest way would be to backup your master & core databases, install 9.1 on your new machine and then restore the master and core databases.

If you have custom code, you would then need to deploy that to your new instance. Technically there, you could copy over the files from the webroot to the new site and just not overwrite any files, then your ConnectionStrings.config would still be valid etc... But you would be safer just re-deploying the code.

You can't simply copy the files over, its more complicated than that. You have xConnect, Identity Server and the main Site, plus IIS Applications, Bindings and Host file entries to make, Solr configuration etc..

Trying to copy all that manually would be very prone to error and probably take longer than just installing Sitecore and restoring the databases.

Answer 2

I would suggest that install clean instance of Sitecore 9.1 in new machine, create Sitecore package for files and items of any custom work in current machine and install the package in new machine.