Use Scripts to Create the Test System

Using the object creation scripts you gathered, wrote or reverse engineered in Chapter 3, “Analyze: Documenting Your Environment”, build a test environment matching your production system.

Use backups or the bcp scripts to populate your test databases.

NoteWhen you create a new database and then load bcp files, you reduce the fragmentation that may be present in the production system and change the performance characteristics of the database. If this is not desirable because you do not intend to rebuild your production environment, you may prefer to create your databases as described in the next section, Create Your Databases by Loading Backups.

Run dbcc’s in the test databases immediately to be sure that there are no problems at this stage.