Migrating Server

Would like to get people's experiences/recommendations

[UKMarkM]

We will be migrating our sites and database to a new box in the near future (next few months), our server is 4 years old now and suffers on days of high traffic. Current server is a Compaq DL380 with dual 1.133 GHz processors and 4GB of SDRAM. We run Windows 2000 Server, SQL Server 2000, IIS5.

We run 6 websites which 2 are web-based business systems, the other 4 are customer facing. Issues I suppose are setting the new box up, what do you guys advise to go with, Windows 2003 Server? SQL Server 2005?

Also does anyone have advice on moving databases with the synchronization problems of going live with a new server and ensuring it has the latest data etc. Also we run a mailserver on the server.

I'm trying to get a plan together which covers everything, down to the dns changes and mx record changes needed, though my main worry is the database, getting it on the new box and making sure it has the latest data on it, and of course with minimal downtime ;)

Sorry for the long post, but I've got a lot to think about!

[scintex]

Hi,

It might be worth splitting this up in 3:

Migration (only a hardware difference)
An upgrade (hardware and software in this case).
Switch over (go live) strategy.

If you want to do two then it's easier to build up the new environment in parallel.

Go for Windows 2003, since Windows 2000 is further down the lifecycle than 2003.

Not sure about sqlserver as I don't use it.

Regarding your data you'd either setup a replicated db so your new one is holding the same data as the current one or you do a data freeze where you backup the data and load it into the new db.

I'd recommend building a parallel environment and thoroughly testing. There is a lot of changes here and therefore a lot of things can go wrong.

So to summarise:

Work out how you are going to get you data from A to B (replicate or data freeze).
Build a new environment internally
Thoroughly test you apps using the Win2k3 and sql server (With sample data)
Test again using real data (and replicate if poss)
When you are happy, switch over the DNS.

Keep in mind that there are strategies for switching DNS. You can either lower the TTL and hope everyone makes it across, or setup something on your old IIS that redirects to the new server. Of course for this to work you need to appreciate that redirecting using the URL won't work ;)