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Michael Barnes

Migrating SBS2008 to Server 2016 Standard - a few pre migration questions

I have just started reading through the migration guide and I have a few questions before I start that I hope someone can help with.

Firstly the guide states to not start migration until all Exchange 2007 updates etc are installed, as we've already moved our email to O365 is it actually necessary to install these updates? Will they have any bearing on any other part of the migration?

My understanding is that once the migration is complete the new server will of course have a different name to the old DC, how does this affect users mapped drives which will of course still be pointing at the old server? Not all users have the same mapped drives so I'm assuming the only option is to delete and recreate them for each user?

When running Fix My Network on the old server we get an error stating that the Certificate Authority is not installed, is this a problem as we've not yet been able to fix it.

One more thing, I notice in a previous post by someone else doing a migration, Mariette recommended install the SBS Essentials Experience on Server 2016 standard for ease of management. Should this be done on a clean install of Server 2016 or Post migration?

And another thought... If we wanted to keep the existing server name on the new DC and we have access to multiple new servers, how much effort would it be to migrate from SBS 2008 to 'new server 1' with a new name of course, and then once the SBS server has been decommisioned do another migration from 'new server 1' to 'new server 2' using the original SBS server name?

Thanks

Mike

asked05/05/2018 14:52
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Last Activity 05/06/2018 13:39

1 Answer(s)

  • Mariette Knap

    Hello Mike,

    Thank you for taking the time to read the guide before you start the migration!

    • If you have moved mail already to Office 365 there is no need to install updates for Exchange Server 2007. You will need to uninstall Exchange Server 2007 from the SBS 2008 in chapter 13 of the guide. Please, find below a screenshot of a default SBS 2008 installation and the status of the Exchange services. You must turn them on before you can uninstall.
    • Mapped drives should be created by a Group Policy and not manually on each client but if you have done that and know the drive letter we can easily create a new policy that updates the location of the share. In other words, we can replace drive mapping to drive G from \\oldserver\someshare to \\newserver\newshare. If you need help with this open a ticket at Premier Support for SMB. A screenshot explains this a bit more I hope.
    • It is strange that you get that warning with the Certificate Authority. It is normally installed on an SBS 2008. I don't know if that will cause issues.
    • In the guide, we install the Essentials Experience role at chapter 7. You should only install the Essentials Experience role on the new server after it has been promoted to become a Domain Controller.
    • If you want to keep the same server name we can do that several ways. In both methods, the Essentials Experience role must not be installed because part of that role is the ADCS and renaming a server or DC that has ADCS installed is not possible. Your method, creating a second hop, would be the preferred way of doing things. We could also use rendom to rename the new DC without introducing a hop but then the old SBS has to be fully demoted and maybe just as a plain file server still around (renamed also).
    answered 05/05/2018 15:44
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    Mariette Knap

    I would like to add one comment on the idea of using the same server name in the process. SBS 2008 has a specific structure of the redirected folders and that is not the same as in a new Windows Server 2016 with the Essentials Experience role installed. This means that implementing Folder Redirection of the new server with new policies will create new shares and locations for Redirected Folders. At initial login of a client that new policy will be implemented and files and folders will be moved to the new location, that is the way things should work. If you choose not to implement new policies the Essentials Dashboard will be crippled somewhat is my idea.

    Anyway, hope this helped.

     

    Michael Barnes

    Thanks for the quick and detailed reply.

    I've never looked into renaming a DC before and too be honest I thought it was pretty much a no-no but that doesn't seem to be the case so I think we'll try renaming rather than doing a 2 step migration. We're doing this is a test environment first so nothing to lose if it doesn't work properly.

    As for the CA issue, not sure what happened there as when I open the CA window I get exactly the same as your image above. BPA doesn't show any major issues so possibly a bug which is making the fix my network wizard incorrectly report the CA isn't installed.

    With regards to your final comment about redirect folders, we don't use folder redirection at present so shouldn't really be an issue.

    replied 05/05/2018 17:57
    Mariette Knap

    In the SBS area renaming the DC = the SBS was impossible because Exchange was on the same box. You can mark this question as answered.

    replied 05/05/2018 18:24
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    replied 05/05/2018 16:05
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