migration by cloning a Production SQL Server host into a Dev environment

Question

We are doing some SQL Server migrations, various versions, by cloning (snapshot backups) the host servers to the new DC in a different domain. Work is still in planning stage, not yet implemented. For the DEV environment in the destination domain, we need to have Production data in the databases from the source instances.

I am therefore thinking that we could clone the Production server from the source domain and rename the host in the destination Dev environment. The SQL server host name part of the instance name will also be renamed i.e. host_server_name\instance_name.

Are there other considerations that I need to have in going down this route? Things I need to be aware of about moving from Prod to Dev? Logins/users from Prod will be dropped and test logins/users will be scripted in.

Any thoughts will be appreciated please. Thank you.

Answer 1

Ideally you should have an SSIS package that runs at night and copy the new data from your Production environment to your Developer/Test environment.

• This is a guide that will help you doing it right
• This is a schema to check if you are doing it right
• This is a post that will help you avoid troubles to production

• PTL_SQL: thank you very much, I will check out those articles. Much appreciated.