Deploy New Server Farm, then Migrate Content Databases Question

I've attempted to perform a test migration of one of my WSS 2.0 "sites" to WSS 3.0 using the method described in the "Deploy a new server farm, then migrate content databases" section of the online docs. I'm running into areas in which the documentation is missing steps and I need some clarification from MSFT's Online Partner Support folks.

The first step in this migration scenario is to "perform the pre-upgrade steps" including running the prescan tool on the existing WSS 2.0 sites. No problems here. The prescan ran fine with no exceptions.

The second step is to "Prepare the new WSS 3.0 environment". This is where my questions begin.

First question: In "creating a web application for each virtual server that was in the old environment", should I create the content database with using the same name as the content database in the old environment or with a new name? For example, my old site was in the root of an IIS web site (for intranet use only) called "vault.gulfcoastseal.com" and used a content database called "WSS_Vault" in SQL Server. When creating the new WSS 3.0 web application on my test server, should I name the content database the same (WSS_Vault) or should it have a new name such as the default WSS_Content? The docs are not clear on this and it seems important since in the next step I'll be restoring a backup of my old (WSS_Vault) database to my new test server.

Second question: In the "Migrate content databases" section in the docs it describes backing up the old (prescanned) content databases and restoring them on the new SQL server machine. No problems here. Next it describes how to use the "stsadm.exe" tool to "Add the databases to the web applications". So if I created a new WSS 3.0 web application in the first step which already has a content database and then "Add" my old content database to this web application, won't I end up with 2 content databases? Obviously this depends upon what I named the content database in my first question. So is the goal in this migration scenario to restore over the WSS 3.0 content database with the WSS 2.0 database so that the "in place upgrade" process takes over or is the goal to end up with a new web application that has 2 content databases?


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Jeff Lynch
MVP Windows Server System - Commerce Server
http://codebetter.com/blogs/jeff.lynch

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