Create a new web application with existing content database copy in same sharepoint farm

Question

1.I have one web application 'WebAppA.company1.com' in production SP Farm with a content database Wss_Content_DB1 and i taken a backup and restored in staging as Wss_Content_DB2 and mounted to web application in staging.

2. In staging, i modified the design, created new page layouts,master pages and created some sub sites
3. In Staging, i taken backup of Content database 'Wss_Content_DB2' and restored in same Production SharePoint Farm SQL Instance as new content database Wss_Content_DB3_FromStaging'

and now i want to create a new Web Application with different hostname 'WebApp2.Company1.com' in Same SP Production farm with 'Wss_Content_DB3_FromStaging' Content database
Can i do this step 4 successfully because WebApp2.company1.com content database is copy of the Webapp1.company1.com database?

Answer 1

The sites contained within content databases have a farm-wide unique ID which cannot be changed on the live site. What you would need to do in staging is performing a Backup-SPSite. Take that backup, then restore it to your desired database in production. This will change the GUID of the restored site.