I'd like to create a create a carbon copy of our existing, production SP 2013 site, which is:http://inside.ourdomain.com.
I'd like to house the database for the "test" site on the same server that's running our production database and I know I need to create a new content database using either powershell or the GUI of SP Central Administration.
I want to create the test site as http://insidetest.ourdomain.com so I'm guessing I need to create both a DNS record for insidetest.ourdomain.com as well as a host header within IIS for the same value.
As far as creating the copy of our production site, should I use the "copy-spsite" method, or the "backup-spsite" and "restore-spsite" method? I'm sure there are pros/cons to both methods but the copy-spsite looks easier and pretty goof-proof?
Thank you,
Ed