Looking for a complete upgrade path from a 2003 R2 domain to 2012. Would like to transfer fsmo roles and also upgrade sql from 2005 to 2010 or later and exhange 2003 to 2010. Ive been looking on here and other places but haven't been able to find anything. Would it be better to transfer to 2008 and then move to 2012 or just start fresh in 2012. Any input would be appreciated. Thanks!
Looking for a server 2003 to 2012 upgrade path
windows-server-2003
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Some of these tips are just general AD health checks.
- Run
dcdiagon both domain controllers to ensure everything is clean. - Verify that the FSMO roles are where you assume they are. (KB234790)
- Look through Active Directory Sites & Services and confirm that you only see the servers and sites you expect to be there.
- Ensure that your migration target (dc2) is a global catalog server.
- Look through DNS to ensure that both domain controllers are properly registered, and there are no extra records lying around, especially in _msdcs.
- If you are handling DHCP with Windows Server, you should deauthorize the original server before demoting it with
dcpromo.
Why do you want to turn dc1 off? If there is only a single domain controller in your domain and it fails, you'll have a big problem on your hands. Consider leaving dc1 running as backup.
Make sure you are using the version of adprep from 2008 R2. It should be run on the schema master and infrastructure master for the domain for /forestprep and /domainprep respectively. Win2008 R2 is 64bit, but it also has a 32bit version of adprep if you need it. (ADPREP32) Yes, it can be run during business hours, and I have never seen them take more than a few seconds to do their jobs.
- Run adprep /forestprep. Wait for schema changes to replicate.
- Run adprep /domainprep. Wait for replication.
- Don't mess with domain and forest functional levels yet.
- DCPROMO your Win2008R2 box alongside your existing DCs.
- Transfer FSMO roles to it if you wish.
- Begin decomissioning your old DCs by first demoting them with DCPROMO.
- You're done. Your domain and forest functional levels are still at 2003, you simply have a 2008 R2 machine for a domain controller. (You didn't specify exactly what your DFL and FFL was so I assumed.)
Answering your questions:
You need to transfer the roles manually as per my instructions above, that is, if your intent is to let the new 2008R2 DC have the FSMOs.
Yes, DCPROMO should be all that is required to demote a domain controller. If something goes wrong trying to demote it though you'll have to perform a metadata cleanup. (Not hard.)
After all of your old DCs are gone and you have only 2008R2 DCs in your forest, you can start thinking about raising the FFL and DFL.
Best Answer
I'm actually doing this exact same thing right now.
We are currently running SBS 2003, Exchange 2003 and MSSQL 2000.
I looked at upgrading in-place but in all honesty, it would be very messy to say the least. So over the past couple of months I've been rebuilding everything from scratch. New Windows 2012 servers, Exchange 2010 and MSSQL 2012 - plus any old 3rd party software I'm upgrading as well as I go along.
It's all being done in VM's on its own little network/IP range so it doesn't interfere with current network. I can have both the old and new VM's side by side on my two screens and use the old one as a reference to setup the new. Fairly straight forward but time consuming.
I've had to recreate each of the user accounts, set up group polices again, migrate MSSQL data, and so on. It's almost completely setup and ready to start migrating users across. This will probably happen in the next month or two.
If you're coming from MSSQL 2005 you can backup your databases and restore then directly into 2012. The only issue I had here was having to delete each of the database security accounts and recreate them again. I'm not sure but without doing this none of our in-house app would connect to the databases.
The main reason I chose this path (recreating everything from scratch) was because our current setup is not in the best shape. It's been upgraded from NT, to 2000, undergone to physical machine migrations plus a migration into a VM. So there is a lot of garbage following it around.
I never created it to begin with and when I took it over, there was no real documentation about it. So I decided to recreate everything from scratch, documenting everything I've done and why and at least now I know everything is setup clean, correctly and in perfect running order.
Depending on the size of your network, I'd recommend this path. It may take a little longer to setup but the end result, in my opinion, will be much better. It's not hard to recreate user accounts, migrate Exchange mailboxes, SQL data and so on.