This weekend I attempted another SBS2003-> SBS2011 swing. With one SBS swing I felt OK but still a bit apprehensive about this one, being my biggest and longest client. All throughout the prep and builds of TEMPDC and SBS2011 box I was once again a "clean event log" hound, so I was in the registry, DCOMCNFG, etc trying to make sure things were spot-on and there were no errors or warnings in the event logs (not really possible, but you can get very close). Snapshots all throughout the build so I can return and rebuild if and where necessary.
I decided to do the Go Live starting at 6PM on Sunday, taking PTO from %dayjob% to be onsite Monday. The Exchange forklift to the TEMPDC Exchange 2003 went fine, the data moves, etc all good. The very last step is to move Exchange mailboxes from E2K3 to the SBS2011 box, then connect Internet and let the mail flow in. The mail conversion in theory is about 2-4GB/hr, this was borne out by the first SBS swing I did as well. This client's private mail store is 17GB, so I figure 14 hours is enough time, so I kick off the mailbox conversion and let it go... ...and wait.. ...and wait.. By 4am only about 50% of the mailboxes have converted. This is bad, because I can't connect their Internet because mail will start flowing in* and there's no turning back, but there's NO WAY this conversion is done by 8-9am. Doing some quick math it's far better to abort (I feel mediocre here) and reschedule than have 50 employees without Internet and e-mail for the first part of the day, so at 5:30AM I back everything our and return their SBS2K3 box back up. I can log in, see everything I'd expected, printers, etc. No harm no foul, so I went home to get some sleep.(I'm feeling OK at this point) I woke up at 10AM thinking I better check in to make sure they're set. Looking at my phone, I'd had it on silent and they'd been trying to call me!!! Now...their A/R server is now on a separate server (SBS w/ Premium add-on lets you run SQL separate from your Exchange system). During the conversion, I had moved their A/R server to a separate VLAN so I didn't accidentally hose it, the problem is I never flipped it BACK to the production VLAN. For two hours they had citizens trying to pay their bill but couldn't, because I had disabled that server. Being a VM, I was able to fix it within 1 minute of being told it was down, but man what a terrible feeling. I did go back onsite that day to apologize and explain what happened, and my fortune being what it is (I'm the luckiest guy you'll ever meet), they were all very understanding and there was no animosity. In short, they understand that these things happen and over the last 12 years I have been managing their networks they've really had very few issues. Good thing for building good will!! The next "go live" starts on Friday on Memorial Day weekend, should be fine...the bummer is since there's 21 days to activate SBS2011 I have to rebuild the upgrade environment from scratch again. Good thing I kept noted of all the little gotchas specific to this conversion. I hope all of them anyway :) Dave * Yes it's usually possible to turn on Internet and NOT have mail flow in, but this is a special case. ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin
