Thank you George. Yes..this indeed our DR site setup.

We are not using encryption..but I will make sure that the service master is backed up.

We dont have reporting services intalled, but we do have Analysis services. Any special steps to follow for that?

To make things more interesting, this is acutally a Sql 2008 cluster (both production & DR). Let me explain the entire scenario:

We are using Sql Server 2008 Enterprise x64 edition on Windows Server 2003 Ent platform. The production environment is configured in a 2 node Active/Passive cluster. Our requirement is to setup a remote DR site using SRDF R1-R2 SAN (EMC) based replication. This is the standard DR model followed for Oracle & Unix and we have been instructed to do a PoC for the same model using Sql & Windows cluster. The remote site already has a setup similar to production (Sql 2008 Ent x64 + 2 node cluster) and is currently used as a Staging Environment. The apps team wants the remote DR site to have the same name as the production instance. So achieve all this I plan to do the following:

1. The replication will happen between the shared disk resouces (which Sql Server uses in Production) to the DR SAN.

2. The DR SAN will be made available in the DR site after breaking the replication.

3. The sql Server related folders (instance root directory say MSSQL10.InstanceID) will be renamed

4. I will install a 2nd intance in the DR site with the same name, disk configuration and patch levels as in production.

5. Then bring down the sql server services in DR.

6. Rename the Sql Server folders (of the newly installed instance) to a dummy name.

7. Rename back the folders (modified in Step 3) to the actual names

8. Bring up the Sql Server services.

9. I believe the Sql Server will be automatically mapped to the production data.

10. By keeping the DR Instance with the same name as production I hope to avoid any registry errors or any other dll missing issues.

11. Test the DR sql server intance.

12. Now bring the DR sql server instace down.

13. Change the IP of the Sql Server network name to point to the production IP.

14. Bring up the Sql Server resources on production.

The entire method is kind of complex. I want to take this up as a PoC and check if it works.

Do you see any problems in the steps mentioned. Much appreciate your help.