For anything other than a small environment, this would be a PITA.
a) Building the server and getting services running (and thus being able to do your system acceptance test) would require AD connectivity b) After migrating the databases, being able to test the migration would require access to AD (unless you've used SQL Server authN exclusively, or used local Windows accounts) c) Roll-back (once you've joined the new server to the domain) if you need to back-out would be a pain Cheers Ken From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jon Harris Sent: Tuesday, 13 August 2013 9:57 AM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [NTSysADM] RE: sql server upgrade Question why not just create the server off network from the old one with the correct name in the first place migrate the DB's thru intermediate means and then take the old server out of the picture putting in the new one. All that would be needed would be joining the domain for the new one while the old one would stay good to go until the last possible moment. Jon ________________________________ From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: [NTSysADM] RE: sql server upgrade Date: Mon, 12 Aug 2013 19:52:28 +0000 thanks damien and glen. i think i'll go ahead with option #2. i already have the MS tech article on how to rename a sql server so that isn't a concern. appreciate the insight. jesse ________________________________ From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> [[email protected]] on behalf of Glen Johnson [[email protected]] Sent: Monday, August 12, 2013 2:43 PM To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: [NTSysADM] RE: sql server upgrade +100 on option 2. I personally wouldn't trust option one, way too many strange things happen later and you never know if they are related to the upgrade or not. Plus, I never do OS upgrades. Never, never, never. From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jesse Rink Sent: Monday, August 12, 2013 3:34 PM To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: [NTSysADM] sql server upgrade We have an older Windows 2003 R2 x64 VM server which contains SQL2005 x64 on it. I'm planning on getting this box more current... My first option is to: 1. Take a image backup of the VM with our PHD Virtual software 2. Increase the c: drive hard disk in vSphere and then use a partition tool to expand the c: partition (its too small to perform the 2008 R2 upgrade on it) 3. Upgrade 2003 R2 x64 to Windows 2008 R2. 4. Upgrade SQL 2005 to SQL 2008 R2. Anyone had bad experiences going this route? The second option is to: 1. Create a brand new 2008 R2 server with SQL 2008 R2. 2. Detach the 10 DBs from SQL-OLD, copy them over to the SQL-NEW server and re-attach. 3. Decomission the old SQL-OLD server 4. Rename SQL-NEW to SQL-OLD and assign it the same IP address that the original SQL-OLD had. 5. Setup my Maintenance Plans from scratch. I think I'll be good for all my client applications that have specific ODBC settings configured pointing to either the IP address of the SQL box or the computer name/FQDN. Anyone had bad experiences going this route? Leaning more towards option TWO at this time... I tend to like clean installs as opposed to upgrades (generally). JR

