I do that type of upgrade slightly differently. I rebuild the new box from scratch minus the databases. Then, I restore all databases on the new server and allow some time for testing of the new configuration. Of course, some care has to be taken such that no inadvertent updates are done to production data through linked servers, DTS packages, etc.

On the morning of the cutover, I restore the system databases. Then, I restore, but do not recover, the user databases. Through the day, I continue to restore transaction logs to the user databases on the new server (again not recovering the databases). This way the new server is never far behind the production server. At the cutover time, kick users off the old server, do final transaction log backups, copy them to the new server apply them and recover the databases.

I have done used this method on a number of servers. If you can script the activities and coordinate steps, the downtime could be nominal. I have upgraded a box with 150GB of very active databases with only 10 minutes of application downtime.

Jay




From: Guzman
Sent: Tue 30-May-06 17:29
To: LazyDBA Discussion
Subject: Re: Server to Server Migration


This would also be a good time to document your Disaster Recovery plan.

Me? I would install the same OS and SQL versions on the new machine,
offline, using the old names AND locations for everything. Then I would
do a complete backup of the SQL server, not just the data, from the old
server, then restore that to the new server. Offline the old server,
reboot and online the new server. Viola! down time should only be the
time it takes to run the backup and then the restore/reboot.

Good luck.

Dan





I'm looking for the best overall SQL Server hardware upgrade
methodology. We need to move an instance of SQL Server from an old
server to a new one with minimal downtime. However, due to limitations
of our third party software which uses the SQL Server as a back-end,
both the server name and instance name must be the same on the new
server. Everything must be copied over, from security, views and stored
procedures to backup schedules and replication configuration.

I've read about several different approaches for doing this, but none of
them are very simple. I'm looking for the LAZY (as in LazyDBA) way.

What is the most acceptable way to do this?

Michael Phillips
Cardiac Science
[Email address protected]


---------------------------------------------------------------------
TO REPLY TO EVERBODY , PLEASE CLICK REPLY-ALL, NOT JUST REPLY
Website : http://www.LazyDBA.com
To unsubscribe: http://www.lazydba.com/unsubscribe.html





---------------------------------------------------------------------
TO REPLY TO EVERBODY , PLEASE CLICK REPLY-ALL, NOT JUST REPLY
Website : http://www.LazyDBA.com
To unsubscribe: http://www.lazydba.com/unsubscribe.html

MS Sql Server LazyDBA home page