When you are applying Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 updates to a farm, we recommend as a best practice that you detach content databases (except any containing Project Web Access site data) from the farm before applying the update in order to reduce downtime. If your content database contains your Project Web Access site data and data from numerous other sites, as a workaround you can use the process documented in this article to move the Project Web Access site data to a new content database. You can then keep the content database containing the PWA site data attached to the farm, and then detach all other content databases before updating the farm.
To extract Project Web Access site data to a new content database
1. Disable the Project Server Synchronization Job for the Project Web Access instance. This job must be temporarily disabled during this procedure. It must be enabled again at completion of this procedure (step 8).
a.On the SharePoint Central Administration Web site, in the Operations page, in the Global Configuration section, click Timer job definitions.
b.On the Timer Job Definitions page, in the Title column, click Project Server Synchronizing Job for
c.On the Edit Timer Job page, click Disable.
2.Back up the Project Web Access site as follows: At a command prompt, use the following command syntax to back up your Project Web Access site:
Stsadm –o backup –url http://server/pwa -filename <\backup.bak>\backup.bak>
For example: Stsadm -o backup http://contoso1/pwa -filename c:\backupfiles\pwasitebackup.bak
3.Create a new content database for your PWA site data as follows: At a command prompt, use the following command syntax to create a new content database in the Web application:
Stsadm –o addcontentdb –url http://server:80 –databaseServer
For example: Stsadm –o addcontentdb –url http://contoso1:80 – databaseServer ContosoNetwork\SQLServer1 - databaseName Content_database_PWA
4.Examine the properties of the new content database to ensure that the new site collection can be restored to it.
a.In Central Administration, in the Application Management page, in the SharePoint Web Application Management section, click Content databases.
b.On the Manage Content Databases page, check the properties of the new content database. Calculate the “free space” for the new content database by subtracting the value for Current Number of Sites from the value for Maximum Number of Sites.
Note: Take note of the Current Number of Sites of the new content database. Remember this value for step 7 in this procedure.
c.Calculate the “free space” value for the other content databases in the Database Name list. Compare these values with the free space value for the new content database. If the new content database does not have the largest free space value in comparison with the others, you can manually increase the Maximum Number of Sites value in the content database properties in order to increase the free space. To do this, click the name of the new content database from the database list. On the properties page for the new content database, increase the Maximum number of sites that can be created in this database value to a number that creates the required free space value. Click OK to save the changes.
5.Delete the existing Project Web Access site as follows: At a command prompt, use the following command syntax to delete the existing Project Web Access site:
Stsadm –o deletesite –url http://server/pwa
For example: Stsadm –o deletesite –url http://contoso1/pwa
6.Restore the Project Web Access site to the new content database as follows: At a command prompt, use the following command syntax to restore the Project Web Access site to the new content database by restoring the backup file you created in step 1:
Stsadm –o restore –url http://server/pwa -filename <\backup.bak>\backup.bak>
For example, Stsadm -o restore –url http://contoso1/pwa -filename c:\backupfiles\pwasitebackup.bak
7.Verify that the restored PWA site data is in the new content database.
a.In Central Administration, in the Application Management page, in the SharePoint Web Application Management section, click Content databases.
b.On the Manage Content Databases page, check the properties of the new content database. The value for Current Number of Sites should now have increased by one over the previous value.
8.Enable the Project Server Synchronization Job for the Project Web Access instance.
Important: You must remember to enable this job. Leaving this job in a disabled state can cause problems and will result in an unsupported operating condition.
a.In Central Administration, in the Operations page, in the Global Configuration section, click Timer job definitions.
b.On the Timer Job Definitions page, in the Title column, click Project Server Synchronizing Job for
c.On the Edit Timer Job page, click Enable.
9.Open Project Web Access to verify that the site is operational.
You can now use the procedures described in Deploy software updates for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 or Deploy software updates for Office SharePoint Server 2007 to detach the content database and apply the update.