SQL Server 2012 - Server Name Change Question

  • Due to a failed product upgrade (Vendor made us the guinea pig for their latest update) we are looking at rolling back the product version and that involves 1 2012 SQL server box and 1 2012 Analysis Services box.  This sounds confusing at first but bare with me.  Due to a number of custom process within this product (not in SQL Server or SSAS)  we opted to do an update but with new servers re-using the old servers names. Here was the order where SQL01 is the name of the server hoisting SQL Server and SQLAS01 is the name of the server hosting SSAS. 

    Backup all relevant Data/DB from SQL01 and SQLAS01 and move to file server
    Generate SQL script to re-create applicable security/logins 
    Rename SQL01 to SQL01_TEMP and rename SQLAS01 to SQLAS01_TEMP.  Change IP Address on both. 
    Create 2 new Servers named SQL01 and SQLAS01.  Assign these new servers the same IP's the ol;d servers used
    Install SQL Server 2016 on SQL01 and SQL server 2016 Analysis Services on SQLAS01
    Running security script to re-create logins
    Restore DB/Data to the new boxes

    Now that the product update ha failed and we need to go back the thought is to just rename the new servers to something like SQL01_TEMP2 and SQLAS01_TEMP2 and assign new IP's and then rename the old serves back to what they were initially and give them back their old IP's. 

    QUESTION: I know that when you change the name of the server that SQL Server breaks and you must take some steps top make SQL Server work with the new name assigned to the server.  In the above scenario since we are changing the server names back to what they were would these same steps need to made to get SQL Server working?  What about for the Analysis Services box?

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  • YSLGuru - Thursday, August 16, 2018 9:39 AM

    Due to a failed product upgrade (Vendor made us the guinea pig for their latest update) we are looking at rolling back the product version and that involves 1 2012 SQL server box and 1 2012 Analysis Services box.  This sounds confusing at first but bare with me.  Due to a number of custom process within this product (not in SQL Server or SSAS)  we opted to do an update but with new servers re-using the old servers names. Here was the order where SQL01 is the name of the server hoisting SQL Server and SQLAS01 is the name of the server hosting SSAS. 

    Backup all relevant Data/DB from SQL01 and SQLAS01 and move to file server
    Generate SQL script to re-create applicable security/logins 
    Rename SQL01 to SQL01_TEMP and rename SQLAS01 to SQLAS01_TEMP.  Change IP Address on both. 
    Create 2 new Servers named SQL01 and SQLAS01.  Assign these new servers the same IP's the ol;d servers used
    Install SQL Server 2016 on SQL01 and SQL server 2016 Analysis Services on SQLAS01
    Running security script to re-create logins
    Restore DB/Data to the new boxes

    Now that the product update ha failed and we need to go back the thought is to just rename the new servers to something like SQL01_TEMP2 and SQLAS01_TEMP2 and assign new IP's and then rename the old serves back to what they were initially and give them back their old IP's. 

    QUESTION: I know that when you change the name of the server that SQL Server breaks and you must take some steps top make SQL Server work with the new name assigned to the server.  In the above scenario since we are changing the server names back to what they were would these same steps need to made to get SQL Server working?  What about for the Analysis Services box?

    If you never changed the names when you did the move to those new servers in the first place, you probably don't have to do anything when renaming them back to their original names. For SQL Server, check what the name is in sys.servers where server_id = 0. If you need to change the server name, it's just
    sp_dropserver 'old_name'
    go
    sp_addserver 'new_name', 'local'
    go     

    For Analysis services, it cares about the SSAS intance name/id. You can find that in the msmdsrv.ini configuration file and the SSAS services in SQL Server Configuration Manager. It should be fine but if you need to rename that, they have a instance rename tool to use for Analysis Services:
    Rename an Analysis Services Instance

    Sue

  • Just to add to Sue_H comments  , it will need a SQL services restart for the change to reflect

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