It’s not uncommon to have multiple SharePoint content databases for a single SharePoint application.  The separation of site collections into different content databases is typically done in an attempt to work around content database size recommendations provided by Microsoft (see Microsoft’s Plan for Software Boundaries document for more information).  In many cases organizations have one content database per site collection.  After deploying StoragePoint into your existing SharePoint farm the next logical step is to run the externalize job(s) which will relocate your existing content outside of the content database.  Once completed you will be left with very small content databases that can now be merged (note that you will have to run the DBCC_ShrinkDB script several times to reclaim your unused database space or rebuild table indexes before running dbcc_shrinkDB.  For more information consult the StoragePoint Administrator’s Guide).  Merging SharePoint content databases can be done using the stsadm command. Execute the steps below to merge your content databases.

Prerequisites

1. **** Important!  Microsoft recommends applying the April Cumulative Update before you merge content databases.  There are known issues with this merge database command prior to this update.
2. Even though your content databases will be very small after relocating BLOBs with StoragePoint’s externalize job, you must make sure you have enough free space to merge content databases.  The general rule is that you must have at least three times the size of source site collections database size.  *** Note:  Do not use the value returned for the StorageUsedMB property when running the stsadm -o enumsites -url webappurl to determine your database size.  With StoragePoint deployed this property will reflect the total space used by content in SharePoint but not the actual size of the content database. 
3. In order to execute the following STSADM command you must be a member of the Farm Administrators group and be an Administrator on the local computer.  Additionally you need to have Full Control permission for any site collection being moved.  For SQL Server, you must be a member of the db_owner database role.

Steps to Merge Content Databases

1. From a SharePoint server in your farm, open a command prompt and navigate to %COMMONPROGRAMFILES%\Microsoft shared\Web server extensions\12\Bin
2. Type the following STSTADM Command
   STSADM –o mergecontentdbs –url <url of web application> –sourcedatabasename <source db name> –destinationdatabasename <dest. db name> –operation2
   
   Note that the URL is the URL of the web application that contains the site collection.  This is not the URL of the site collection itself.
   Operation2 = full database merge
3. Restart IIS by running iisreset/noforce from a command prompt.

BlueThread Technologies, Inc. was awarded the Innovative SharePoint ISV Award at 2009 SharePoint Conference during Jeff Teper's keynote address.  For more information on BlueThread Technologies and StoragePoint visit http://www.bluethreadinc.com and http://www.storagepoint.com

A event participant at the SharePoint Techfest 2009 was so excited about StoragePoint that he spilled his coffee all over the BlueThread booth. 

Update test results.  Just over eight hours in. 

SharePoint without StoragePoint
Elapsed Time:  8 hours, 4 minutes, 42 seconds
Documents Imported: 969,074
SharePoint Content Database Size:  223.4 GB

SharePoint with StoragePoint
Elapsed time: 8 hours, 4 minutes, 39 seconds
Documents Imported: 1,349,144
SharePoint Content Database Size: 7.0 GB

Percent Smaller: 96.9%  

Hour Seven Update

Update test results.  Just under seven hours in. 

SharePoint without StoragePoint
Elapsed Time:  6 hours, 59 minutes, 42 seconds
Documents Imported: 878,493
SharePoint Content Database Size:  202.5 GB

SharePoint with StoragePoint
Elapsed time: 6 hours, 59 minutes, 40 seconds
Documents Imported: 1,189,415
SharePoint Content Database Size: 6.3 GB

Percent Smaller: 96.9%  

Hour Six Update

Update test results.  Just over six hours in. 

SharePoint without StoragePoint
Elapsed Time:  6 hours, 2 minutes, 3 seconds
Documents Imported: 793,286
SharePoint Content Database Size:  182.9 GB

SharePoint with StoragePoint
Elapsed time: 6 hours, 2 minutes, 0 seconds
Documents Imported: 1,043,086
SharePoint Content Database Size: 5.4 GB

Percent Smaller: 97.0%  

Hour Five Update

Update test results.  Just over five hours in. 

SharePoint without StoragePoint
Elapsed Time:  5 hours, 1 minutes, 3 seconds
Documents Imported: 693,399
SharePoint Content Database Size:  159.9 GB

SharePoint with StoragePoint
Elapsed time: 5 hours, 1 minutes, 2 seconds
Documents Imported: 905,134
SharePoint Content Database Size: 4.7 GB

Percent Smaller: 97.0%  

Hour Four Update

Update test results.  Just over four hours in. 

SharePoint without StoragePoint
Elapsed Time:  4 hours, 1 minutes, 2 seconds
Documents Imported: 586,855
SharePoint Content Database Size:  135.3 GB

SharePoint with StoragePoint
Elapsed time: 4 hours, 1 minutes, 0 seconds
Documents Imported: 745,478
SharePoint Content Database Size: 3.9 GB

Percent Smaller: 97.1%  

Hour Three Update

Update test results.  Just over three hours in. 

SharePoint without StoragePoint
Elapsed Time:  3 hours, 3 minutes, 24 seconds
Documents Imported: 474,788
SharePoint Content Database Size:  109.5 GB

SharePoint with StoragePoint
Elapsed time: 3 hours, 3 minutes, 22 seconds
Documents Imported: 586,172
SharePoint Content Database Size: 3.0 GB

Percent Smaller: 97.2%

 Two Hour Update

Just over two hours into the test and we have updated results:

SharePoint without StoragePoint
Elapsed Time:  2 hours, 2 minutes, 6 seconds
Documents Imported: 342,116
SharePoint Content Database Size:  78.9 GB

SharePoint with StoragePoint
Elapsed time: 2 hours, 2 minutes, 4 seconds
Documents Imported: 406,727
SharePoint Content Database Size: 2.2 GB

Percent Smaller: 97.3%

 One Hour Update

We are just over an hour into the test at the SharePoint Techfest 2009 and the result thus far are:

SharePoint without StoragePoint
Elapsed Time: 1 hour, 0 minutes, 26 seconds
Documents Imported: 183,164
SharePoint Content Database Size: 42.2 GB

SharePoint with StoragePoint
Elapsed time: 1 hour, 0 minutes, 24 seconds
Documents Imported: 210,452
SharePoint Content Database Size: 1.1 GB

Percent Smaller: 97.3%