Workstation and Server Migration

Current client has an SBS03 infrastructure with Windows XP computers throughout.  They are wanting to upgrade all the PCs and server to latest technology in two stages.  First we install new Windows 7 workstations and then install a Small Business Server 2008 server.

Stage 1:
New HP workstations running Windows 7 were purchased and installed over a 4 day period.  All profile data was transferred over to the new workstation using Windows Easy Transfer over the network.  The client uses a third party suite of applications hosted on the server which also needed to be installed on each workstation.  Each new workstation also had Office 2010 Std installed as well as having their local printers reconnected and drivers installed and tested.  A few of the workstations originally came with Windows Vista installed but had XP reinstalled on them before being put into production.  Three of these workstations have had Vista reinstalled on them to work in the new server environment.

Stage 2:
To be finished in about 2 weeks...

...well 2 weeks turned into about 2 months.  Sometimes things happen and you have to schedule the best you can.  Anyway the server project started in early November

The client has a backup server that took incremental backups of the production server every 15 min.  This server also has the ability to virtualize their production server should something happen to the physical server.  Used this technology to help in the migration process.  Overnight took a final backup of the production server, took that server offline and created the production server on the backup server and ran it virtually.  This allowed me to keep the office up and running as normal while reinstalling and configuring a new SBS08 installation on the physical server hardware.  Before installing the new OS, I improved the hardware for the new server; orginal configuration  had 4GB of memory, I increased it to 16GB; orginal configuration had a RAID1 2 disk system drive and a 4 disk RAID5 data drive, I kept the system drive the same but added 2 disks to the data drive and created a RAID 10.

Once the server operating system was installed on the physical server hardware I migrated all users, computers, Exchange, data, and business applications over to the new server.  Tested all infrastructure successfully.  Removed old server from the network.