Many of the clients that I work with are considered small to medium size businesses. Some of them are small enough that they still run a peer to peer network and dont want to or cannot invest the type of money it takes to install an SBS or even Server Standard server. About a year ago I was at a vendor presentation when they started to discuss Microsoft Foundation Server 2008. I got to thinking that this could be a really great option for our smaller clients.
Fast forward to April 2011, we have a new not-for-profit company who hires us to do a server installation and eventually support their infrastructure. The installation was to be put in as the client was creating a brand new office so there was no pre-existing server or network to speak of and all new cabling had been run.
The installation was very basic, the server was an HP DL series server which came with the HP branded media. I installed the OS on the server and configured it for a new domain. The server was also configured to do file and print sharing as well.
In addition to the server, there were 4 other HP workstations joined to the domain and configured with individual domain users, a Watchguard XTM21W wireless firewall appliance, and a new gigabit switch.
The entire project took a total of 3 days to complete.
Exactly one week later a similar server project was installed for a different new client. This client had 3 existing computers all running in a peer-to-peer network. The Server 2008 Foundation server was the identical HP DL series server that was used in the previous server project.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
SBS2003 to SBS2008 Migration to Same Hardware
Client decided to upgrade technologies from their existing SBS2003 environment to an SBS2008 environment. The existing server was installed on physical server hardware that was going to be used for the SBS2008 installation.
The first phase of the process was to get the production server off of the hardware. I implemented a temporary Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 machine to act as a virtual host running Hyper-V. Then I created a virtual hard drive (.vhd) copy of the production server using the Sysinternals tool Disk2VHD. Once the virtual hard drive was created and copied over to the Hyper-V server, I created a new virtual server and attached the virtual hard drives to the server and booted it up. After resetting the network interface I tested all email and data access successfully. With the physical production server still running, but unplugged from the network, I had the users run off the virtual SBS2003 server for a full day before starting the installation process.
The second phase of the process was to install additional memory into the physical server and install SBS2008 in migration mode using the unattended answer file. Once the answer file was created and placed on the root of a flash drive I started the installation. After the server was installed I started the migration process using the Migration Wizard in the SBS Console. The next step was moving Exchange mailboxes and client data from the old server to the new, that was performed remotely during the evening hours. I had previously created an RDP rule that would allow me access to the server. The following day I verified that email flow was running properly to and from the new server, as well as the clients having access to their data shares.
The final process was installing and migrating over the remaining items from the source server to the destination server, things like antivirus management consoles, printers, and additional data. After a few days of running successfully on the destination server, the source server was demoted, Exchange was removed, and it was maintained as a member server due to an application that was not supported on the new Server Operating System.
The first phase of the process was to get the production server off of the hardware. I implemented a temporary Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 machine to act as a virtual host running Hyper-V. Then I created a virtual hard drive (.vhd) copy of the production server using the Sysinternals tool Disk2VHD. Once the virtual hard drive was created and copied over to the Hyper-V server, I created a new virtual server and attached the virtual hard drives to the server and booted it up. After resetting the network interface I tested all email and data access successfully. With the physical production server still running, but unplugged from the network, I had the users run off the virtual SBS2003 server for a full day before starting the installation process.
The second phase of the process was to install additional memory into the physical server and install SBS2008 in migration mode using the unattended answer file. Once the answer file was created and placed on the root of a flash drive I started the installation. After the server was installed I started the migration process using the Migration Wizard in the SBS Console. The next step was moving Exchange mailboxes and client data from the old server to the new, that was performed remotely during the evening hours. I had previously created an RDP rule that would allow me access to the server. The following day I verified that email flow was running properly to and from the new server, as well as the clients having access to their data shares.
The final process was installing and migrating over the remaining items from the source server to the destination server, things like antivirus management consoles, printers, and additional data. After a few days of running successfully on the destination server, the source server was demoted, Exchange was removed, and it was maintained as a member server due to an application that was not supported on the new Server Operating System.
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Sunday, April 3, 2011
SBS2008 Virtualization Project
Existing client had an environment consisting onf one server running SBS2003 and a single application server running Windows Server 2000. Concept of the project was to implement new technology while consolidating hardware. New server hardware was purchased with 24GB of RAM, quad-core processor, dual power supplies, and over 2TB of storage.
First phase of the project was to migrate applications over to the new server. I installed Server 2008 R2 x64 Std on the physical hardware that acted as the virtual host. I then installed Server 2008 R2 x64 virtually using the Std licening from the SBS2008 Premium media. Migrated 3 separate L.O.B. applications over to the new application server.
Second phase of the project was to implement the new SBS2008 server virtually. Once again, installed the SBS08 virtually then migrated all data, settings, mailboxes, and services from the old SBS2003 to the new SBS2008 server. Demoted and shut down the old server.
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