Hi all,
We're wondering what your experience has been when upgrading SQL Server your database server. Have you upgraded in place or side-by-side on the same server? Have you created new VMs or use new servers for the install and then migrated everything over?
Our Test 'database server' has two instances of SQL server, one named and one default. The default is used for our Test environment and the named is used for our Staging environment. We plan to keep the same 'application server' when upgrading to v14 but are on the fence about installing SQL 2016 side-by-side or on a new VM. What do you think of installing SQL 2016 on a VM that also has SQL 2008?
What has been your experience?
Thanks,Houston Symphony
Caitlin,
We just went through this last week. We created a completely new SQL 2016 server(VM) with newer OS instead of upgrading the SQL 2008 server. I did a restore from the midnight backup and proceeded from that, putting the old server in read-only mode. But we were changing many things, including server naming convention, so there was no way to upgrade the old environment anyway. I don't have any experience on the side-by-side environment you're talking about.
Woodruff Arts Center
We're not there yet, but here's what I'm planning. Current servers are Win 2008R2/SQL 2008. We will move to all new vm's for v14. I'm going to upgrade my App Server first. Once that's done and working with existing stuff, we'll create new vm's for v14, Live and Test. All Win2016/SQL2016. We'll have 2 or 3 SQL test instances on the Test vm, as we do now. Or option to add another Test vm if that's necessary. The new live server will be a new vm running only the Live instance. My ideas are subject to change however!!
...Dave
Hi Caitlin,
We're in the middle of a v14.1 upgrade, and I chose to upgrade from SQL Server 2012 to 2016 on the existing VM in our test environment. We have instances on that VM still running SQL Server 2012. So far, we have not run into any issues and have done quite a bit of testing. That is a supported path coming from SQL Server 2008 SP4, although I have never done it. When we went from v11 to v12, we went from SQL Server 2008 R2 to SQL Server 2012 on a new VM partially because I wanted to do an OS upgrade as well and we wanted to restructure the environment somewhat.
Here are some factors that are worth considering in making the decision:
What is the current OS of your SQL Server 2008 VM? If it is Windows Server 2008 R2 or older, a new VM based on Windows Server 2016 (ideally) would be a good idea as 2008 R2 will reach the end of its life cycle in early 2020.
If you do an in-place upgrade, what will you do if your SQL Server 2016 upgrade fails during your production migration (even after success in a test environment)? Will you have a VM backup you can restore? A snapshot you can revert to? Something else?
Are you generally happy with the configuration and performance of your current database server? If you want or need to make significant changes, it might make sense to just start with a new VM.
Good luck!
The use of a new VM has been a consistent theme for many of the upgrades I have done in the past as well. One of the big advantages is that on migration / upgrade day. The steps are copy the database from the live server to new server. Test, repoint web site and client software to new servers, test again.
If there is a problem along the way the rollback is fairly simple. Make sure web site and clients are pointing back at old version, test, send out notification and call it a night. You still have the inoperative new environment to work with and learn from for a second attempt at the upgrade.
So rollback is a big value of the new VM approach.