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Wednesday, April 15th, 2009
The key to migrating an existing windows server to a new one is to analyze all the network services that the existing unit provides and plan how to migrate each of those services to the new server. It is also important to consider the security environment that the existing server is a member of and the one which the new server will be joined to. In the case of migrating applications such as Sharepoint, if the security environment is changing then there are additional steps required to migrate user information within the content databases after the databases have been moved.
So lets take a look at the kinds of network services that need considering when planning a windows server migration: -
- Network communication, the network topology, DHCP, WINS, DNS etc ..
- User accounts
- Printer services
- Logon scripts
- Filesystem and filesystem security
- Antivirus services
- Backup (locally, remotely, offsite)
- Exchange (public folders, mailboxes)
- Websites
- SQL databases and applications
A temporary lack of access to any of the above services may cause quite a bit of business interruption and it is often the case that a cost benefit analysis will need to be undertaken to establish which migration method minimizes the disruption of these services. Non stop working in shifts for 48 hours at the weekend is not unheard of!
Depending on the network structure surrounding the server that is being migrated it may also be necessary to visit client workstations and reconfigure them to access the network services on the new server.
Windows server migration can also be risky, what happens if the migration process fails half way through? How can the process be rolled back to minimize business disruption? Doing a spot of risk analysis and planning how to get round possible windows server migration failure scenarios is well worth the extra effort. The migration may go exactly according to plan, but if there are serious problems then having a plan to deal with them will save a great deal of headaches!
If you would like to know more about windows server migration, then please contact us.
This is a comment written by haze to see if it will get through the new antispam plugin thingy.
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