July 8, 2004 at 8:48 am
Hi everybody,
We've been running SQL Server 2000 (originally installed at 7) from a NT server box for sometime now. This box is about to go out of support so we've purchased a new NT server box to migrate the entire SQL Server on.
Anyone care to share their experiences doing something like this? Any thoughts, pitfalls or strategies would be appreciated.
Dave Powers
University of Northern Colorado
July 9, 2004 at 7:48 am
Shouldn't be an issue. We've done it many times here. We've either created a new server with a new name and repointed any ODBC drivers to the new server or we've created a new server, such as NTnew, migrated data, tested and then shut down the old server and renamed the new server to the old server name. The one pitfall with this is IP address and WINS. It doesn't always resolve properly. Our new approach is to rename the server to the old server name AND change the IP address of the new server to be the same as the old server. Works like a charm! One other thing I can think of with the rename approach is scheduled jobs may fail. In msdb, you'll need to update originating_server on sysjobs with the new server name.
Terry
July 9, 2004 at 8:06 am
One that we are starting to do. Instead of pointing to the server by name, we are creating DNS entries for all our ODBC calls (by program if it uses multiple databases) to make our life easier. That way if we want to change servers that DBs reside on, we won't have to touch the client. The ODBC points at the DNS entry "DBName" instead of "ServerNameA". That way if we put have the DB on "ServerNameA" and then want to move it to "ServerNameB" we just have to repoint the DNS entry to "ServerNameB" and not touch the client.
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Jim P.
A little bit of this and a little byte of that can cause bloatware.
July 9, 2004 at 8:19 am
Thank you for the reply, Terry!
So far what we've done is built the box (OS, Norton, BlackIce, etc) in its own isolated, protected domain. This way the NewBox begins its service life with the same server/machine name. We haven't installed SQL Server on it (or tried to restore any backups from the OldBox.) I'm at the point of researching this stratege. But once a copy of the entire production SQL Server is on it we'll begin testing all the connectivity issues. We were hoping that when we determine the cutover date, we'd refresh all the data (and any db object changes made during a short testing period) and then just swap the NT boxes in there domains hopefully dodging any rename issues. This way the OldBox is still available to me but theorically offline.
FYI: This SQL Server contains only home-grown databases, no canned applications.
Thanks again,
Dave
July 9, 2004 at 8:35 am
Sounds like the right approach. In my office, we lose the old servers within a couple of weeks as they get re-purposed (if they are of decent specs) by the network guys. Hopefully, if it's a decent machine, you get to keep it for dev purposes. Good Luck!
Terry
August 11, 2004 at 2:25 pm
Ok, now I am going to do the same thing, but will be moving to a Windows 2000 box from an NT box. Am doing this as Microsoft is no longer supporting NT after December 2004. Can this be done or do I need to get SQL 2000 and upgrade both the operating system and SQL?
Thanks!
August 11, 2004 at 2:36 pm
I'm assuming your not running SQL 2000? Even if you're not, you should be able to run your current version of SQL on Windows 2000 without issues. However, if you can upgrade both, I personally would.
Terry
August 11, 2004 at 2:46 pm
Sorry about that. I am running SQL Server 7 on an NT box and need to move it to a Windows 2000 box running SQL Server 7 for now. We have an NT box that is going flakey and need to do something quickly. Is it easy to move to a 2000 box just like going form nt to nt?
Thanks
August 11, 2004 at 2:51 pm
Absolutely. And upgrading from SQL 7.0 to 2000 is easy as well.
Terry
August 11, 2004 at 2:56 pm
Very Cool, thanks for the help. Care to share procedure for moving from one server to another? I have found a few articles, but always better to have other opionins before getting started.
Thanks!
August 12, 2004 at 6:58 am
The easiest thing I do is simply install SQL on the new server, backup the database on the old server and restore to the new server. You can do the same with master to bring over all logins, unless you have a script to do this for you. You can also use DTS to transfer the logins so you wouldn't have to restore master, which is probably the best method.
Terry
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