Migration of KVS server

[Askar_Kopbayev]

Now we have KVS 5.0 SP5 on W2K. But in next half year all servers have to be upgraded to W2K3. I planned migration by adding new KVS server on W2K3 to the current KVS site and moving users from one KVS to another but it is not possible technically (if I am wrong please correct me).

So does any have any idea how to upgrade KVS from W2K to W2K3 in most painless way?

Yes, there are the simple but long way of exporting users from archive to PST, then disable archiving, move PST to new KVS and enabling for archiving. But having about 1000 users it is not the easy way.

[Tremaine · Accepted solution]

There is no reason why you cannot do an in-place upgrade of your existing KVS server's OS, unless you are wanting to do a HW refresh as well.

However if you really want to change physical HW as well then your best option would be to do a DR from one server to the other. You just need to make sure that both servers have the same machine name and that all your DNS alias's still map correctly for the easiest route.

[David_Messeng1]

Hi Askar,

Personally I would probably not DR. I would say it depends on where your vaults are stored - if they are off the server on NAS or SAN then I'd probably do a side-by-side and port it over.

Some things you might want to consider:

Windows 2003 SP1 has signifigant DCOM changes. My advice would be to build to vanilla W2k3, get EV working again and then upgrade to SP1.

Vaults are linked to stores and Exchange servers, not EV servers.

Exc servers are linked to Archiving and Retrieval services. Stores are linked to Indexing services.

The first EV server is a Directory server. This is special.

If you build side-by side then you will probably have to get the other server licenced.

You must keep the Indexing and Storage logical paths the same.

Make sure the EV services register in Windows correctly if you DR. USL won't neccesarily do this for you.

Remember to check the MSMQs are empty before you button anything.

Makes sure the ODBC connection is recovered if you DR.

David
http://messy.bravehost.com/