"Mask" a named instance of SQL Server 2005

  • Hi,

    some year ago, as a total newbie, I installed a server with a named instance. At that time I used a physical server, and moreover I probably thought that SQL 2005 was the last version name for SQL server, so I named my instance with something like "hpserver\sql2005"...

    Today I have a virtualized system, and I need to migrate SQL2005 to SQL 2014 (or 2016) and I would like to "rename" that instance.

    The matter is that in last years more and more programs both with ODBC and ADO.NET connect to my server, and it's impossible to change all this programs in short time to connect to a new server.

    My answer so is: it is possible to install a new server, named for example "ALPHA", and find some way to "redirect" all requests for older server to newest? I made some test and my matter is not (obviously) computer name, that I can mask with DNS, but instance name...

    Hoping someone can help to correct my youth errors...

    thanks

    Mauro

  • Hello and welcome to the forums.

    You're right in that creating a new DNS name allows you to refer to the server name, but not the instance. Your connection strings do need to to contain the instance name and I know of no way to alias it. If you specified SQL Server to listen on a specific port, that has to be in your connection string as well.

    Is there any way to notify the developers who own the various applications and have them prepare for a scheduled change? Once you identify them, you can schedule your blackout window. There is certainly some risk involved here. While this probably sounds obvious, you don't know what you don't know and there could be other applications in production. The ones the developers don't update will break. While it's likely a relatively simple fix, downtime is downtime.

  • Instance name could never be "aliassed"

    The only thing you could do is keep the named instance and set the tcp ip port to 1433.

    Then you don't need to put the instance name in your connection string.

    BUt in the back, the named instance will always be there.

  • Thanks for Your answers, I feared there was no solution...

    ok, i'll add time for recode all applications to my migration schedule...

    Mauro.

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