Building test platform for project server 2007

[Brenden Ward]

i'm currently building a test/development platform for moss 2007 including
project server 2007
The moss 2007 is up and running and a copy of the live WSS_Content database
is attached so we have an identical MOSS 2007 test bed to our live enviroment.

Our problem is getting the same PWA platform into our test bed as our live
platform. When installing Project Server 2007 it is supposed to ask
"Provision the project server 2007 site on the farm" we are not getting this
request it goes straight to "run configuration wizard" when we try to create
a PWA site using the url http://oursite/PWA is fails (seems to think this
site is already there so it can't provision the PWA site) If I go back and
call it http://oursite/PWATEST is works fine creates the new databases and
works. I need to be able to see same data in the test platform as the live
one. Migrating the databases from the live platform to the test and renaming
them the same as the test databases fails (problems connecting the
configuration databases)

Has anyone successfully created a test platform which is identical to their
live platform and how did they achieve this for the project server 2007 part
of MOSS, any assistance will be really appreciated.

Brenden Ward

 

[Marc S.]

Whenever I need to have a backup or a copy of a PWA instance, I perform the
following steps (note that I have only done this with "production" and test
instance on the same server):

- backup all 4 DB's from production (archive, draft, published, reporting)
- create 4 new blank DB's and name them something like EPM_test_archive etc.
(on the SQL server hosting the test DB's)
- restore the 4 backups to the 4 new blank DB's that you have created
- In SharePoint Central Admin go to Shared Services Provider admin site and
click "Project Server Sites"
- Create a new PWA instance on your server and make sure you write the 4
exact names of the databases you have restored previously (e.g.
EPM_test_archive) in the respective fields
- Provision the PWA site and enjoy the results

Hope this works in your scenario as well...

 

[Brenden Ward]

I have tried this and it stops with an event saying "Provisioning 'PWA4':
Post provisioning setup failed" it seems to be struggling with creating the
WSS site but this I'm not sure.

 

[Brenden Ward]

Work around as follows

In your ssp go to create project access site leave the default databases and
click ok.
When it fails go to the ProjectServer_Published database and run this query

UPDATE MSP_RESOURCES
SET RES_TYPE = 2
WHERE (WRES_ACCOUNT = 'central admin account name)

when the system tries to provision the site it fails because PWA creates an
account and then set the RES_TYPE to 102 (inactive) by running the query it
changes in to
RES_TYPE = 2 (active)

Once the query has worked retry the creation of the PWA site this time it
should work

Remember to backup the databases before you try the above

Cheers
Brenden