I'm in the process of migrating development databases from an old (soon to be decommissioned) database server to a VMWare-hosted virtual machine running Windows 2008 x64.
The old server runs SQL Server 2000, SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008. I am aware of the "compatibility level" feature that exists within SQL 2005 and SQL 2008. One of the requirements is to be able to backup local SQL 2000 and 2005 databases and restore them on client's SQL 2000 and 2005 servers – this is something that compatibility mode doesn't appear to support (MSDN Forums: How to restore SQL 2005 DB to SQL 2000).
My questions is this: Is there a special install order I should be following?
My plan is to:
- Install SQL 2000, patch it
- Install SQL 2005, patch it
- Install SQL 2008, patch it
EDIT 1: If I backup a SQL 2000 database running on SQL 2005 server in "compatibility level" I won't be able to restore it on SQL 2000 server.
EDIT 2: Reasons I am asking about install order: a) I've been burned by software installs before (namely Visual Studio); b) paranoia
EDIT 3 (FINAL): Following advice given by [Guy], I've decided to run each instance of SQL Server on a dedicated virtual machine (instead of a shared one). This should simplify maintenance and increase reliability.
Thanks,
Arnold
Best Answer
Thought of using virtualisation?