Copy SharePoint Site to New Site Collection using MetaVis for SharePoint

Earlier this week MetaVis for SharePoint added an experimental feature that allows to create new site collections based on any existing site. There are several business cases covered by this basic functionality

·         Copy site collection to the other location in the same server farm or to some other server farm

·         Promote existing sub-site to the site collection level (which could be located in the same server farm or in the different one)

·         Create new site collection with the exactly same structure (and, optionally, data) as some other site or site collection

This feature does not require any additional installations (agents) on the SharePoint server side and could be bundled with the regular MetaVis for SharePoint installation. However, it would not work with hosted or BPOS environments because Central Administration there is replaced with custom administration dashboards that impose strict control over site collections creation.

In order to create new site collections, in addition to the regular credentials and site URLs the user should know the URL to the server farm central administration site and server farm administrator credentials.

There are two ways to activate “Copy to New Site Collection” feature:

•  Use site copy wizard by selecting Tools / Site Copy menu item. Select source site first and then Select third option “Create New Site Collection” on the “Select which type of site copy should be run” screen

• The other way to start using Copy to a New Site Collection feature is to right click on any site in the MetaVis Navigation Tree and select “Copy to a new site collection” item from the popup menu.

After the source site is identified the screen Copy to a New Site Collection will appear. The screen will allow to select regular site copy options. It will also prompt to define URL to server farm Central Administration Site and new Site Collection URL in order to connect to the central administration and instruct it to create new site collection.