December 2, 2004 at 2:28 pm
We are currently running an application on a Windows 2000 Server box. The machine is using SQL Server 2000 SP3a for the backend. There is no clustering; however, we are replicating to 5 other servers in different locations around the world. Four of the servers subscribe to one publication; the other server (subscriber) has it's own publication.
We will be migrating the application to a new server in the next week or so. The new box will be running Windows 2003 Server (standard). I have a question about migrating the system databases. It would be ideal if we could migrate the master, msdb, and the distribution databases and have the new machine pick up where the old one left off (same replication publications, subscribers, users, permissions, DTS packages, SQL Agent jobs, etc...). Like I said, it would be great if this would work, but I'm not sure if it will (especially with OS change). I know that we need to have the database files in the same location on the new machine.
Does anyone else have any insight on the feasibility of this?
I Only Work Here......
December 2, 2004 at 3:35 pm
May work. I did it from 2000 to 2000, or from 2003 to the same 2003 after SQL Server was re-installed. Just copied Data folder out with SQL Server stopped and then back after the reinstall. Main thing they should be on the same SQL2KSP3
I am not sure about replication.
What may fail if your jobs invoke scripts or executables that depend on the OS version like running Server Manager for Domains that well, does not exist in 2003.
I have one IIS app that did not run on 2003 server, runs fine on 2000
Now, if jobs include explicit paths like WINNT on 2000 versus Windows in 2003. The location of the Scheduled Tasks log file is different, you name it. Just test everything well or better create a validation test plan, let your bosses sign it, run it after the migration, let bosses sign the results and you will be fine
Yelena
Regards,Yelena Varsha
December 3, 2004 at 12:30 am
Is this a migration or a move? Will the machine name change?
In general, there should be no problem with master, msdb, or distribution databases. I've done this precise replacement when migrating from Win 2000 to Win 2003 (same machine name). As you said, the paths must be identical, and the service pack levels too. If the machine name is changed, however, you will need to drop and readd the local server name. To do this:
sp_dropserver <oldname>
sp_addserver <newName>, 'LOCAL'
The only thing that doesn't seem to move well are Full Text indexes, perhaps because Win 2003 uses a different word breaker than Win 2000, if not more.
One thing to watch out for is that Win 2003 security defaults are much tighter. In particular, DTC across multiple servers is off by default. Some applications do distributed transactions implicitly, e.g., Inserting into a table by querying data from another server. Check out MS Knowledge base articles 817064 and 831425 for more on this. Or I can provide some detail if you want.
Scott Thornburg
Volt Information Sciences
December 3, 2004 at 5:31 am
Thanks very much for the responses.
We are retiring the current server. The plan is to have the new server with the same name and IP address. Also, multiple servers are not involved, so DTC should not be a problem.
Thanks again.
I Only Work Here......
December 3, 2004 at 9:01 am
Well,
Then there will be something else in addition to SQL. We had to move a server from one location to another without moving the old hardware. The clone was made and they (I told you so ..case) discovered they can not keep 2 machines with the same IP on the same network even in different domains. So we did not have a luxury to enjoy both new and old system at the same time for verification purposes. We had to give a new system a new temp name and a new temp IP. Worked fine anyway
Yelena
Regards,Yelena Varsha
December 3, 2004 at 9:07 am
Yea, we're going to remove the old server from the network when we plug in the new.
I Only Work Here......
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