CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

Someone has asked a similar question about just moving the database itself to a separate server (http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php/topic,6033.0.html) but it doesn't sound like it's working yet.  I'd worry that you'd end up with worse performance for your users if you just moved the database, so you'd need to move the whole code base as well.  When CiviCRM runs as a drupal module, it uses things like the user accounts, and other aspects of the underlying CMS so I don't think you can just move it alone.

What you probably could do is place CiviCRM on its own machine, either as standalone, or with a separate Drupal installation supporting it (technically you could use Joomla as well, but that would just add unneeded complexity to your life).  You would then have to process all your donations, email sign ups, etc from your new server, and forgo any real integration with your website.  You could probably make it look smooth enough to be transparent to constituents, although it would mean your staff would have to sign onto two different systems.  There's no real mystery here, you'd just have two independent systems running on two servers, with some links on the live website to point people to the right place (maybe some recoding of web forms as well depending on your site's content).  This would allow you to place the CiviCRM server in a local DMZ on your network, which should improve performance locally, although your ability to accept donations would fluctuate with your local network connectivity. 

Your idea about using replicated data and two copies of the software is interesting, but I'd think you're inviting problems.

Needless to say I wouldn't touch a working donations system in the next 3 days.