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Welcome to MSMVPS Sites. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

Well, the time has come….   our office has been testing the latest beta version of Small Business Server (V7) and I am about to embark on the migration (Microsoft’s method, not Swing migration) to the RTM code.

Here are my notes, as it happens…..   I am reading a RC version of Microsoft migration document.

Source Server Prep….

I am running on HyperV (My server is virtualised).   I have taken a backup of the VHD file so that if all hell breaks loose I can roll back to this.    I am shutting everyone off the network.

I am running some Line of Business applications, and other third party apps…   I am noting these as I will need to reinstall them (GFI Mailarchiver is the main one I need to look out for).

I have put the SBS 2011 CD in the server, I am running the preparation wizard that Microsoft have supplied, this takes me through a few steps, including creating an answer file which I will need for the new server to join this existing domain.   Check, done….

Time to complete – 30 minutes, plus some while the VHD file backed up…

New Server initial prep

I have created a new Virtual Server, and I have set it up to boot from the SBS2011 DVD with a Disk with my answerfile on it which I created earlier (in true Blue Peter fashion).

Boot the box, start the installation…..

Run through the custom install, answer the questions….   wait for about three hours while it installs everything and joins the domain.

Fall asleep at computer – check, Wake up with the worst pins and needles, try to walk, fall over and lay in middle of office for 10 minutes – check.

Go home to finalise migration.

Total time – 3.5 hours, 10 minutes on floor.

Server Migration

On arrival at home, noted that wife complained to me that iPhone had insisted on her having to type in a PIN to access the exchange server.   This is slightly odd as I have not migrated anything yet.   Suspect that this is simply a policy that the new Exchange Server being added has caused.

Redirected folders.   Thankfully we do not use them any more, and I am glad of it…    Redirected folders are a pain in the ass and we don’t recommend them to anyone anymore.   This means I can skip over this section of my migration.  Though the documents give full details if you have to.

Turning off UAC (user Account Control) on the server.   Another pain in the hole…    I hate as an admin having to approve everything I want to do multiple times!  Gaaaaaaah

Migration steps are asking me to reconfigure the network with the connect to the internet wizard.   This scares me slightly as I am not sure if it will kill off my existing connections to the office.   Sure enough, the wizard fails and my SMTP connectors in Exchange which I always modify to secure down the server are to blame.   The SBS Fix my network wizard seems to fix, but will need me to look more at it later…

OK, moved over the Certificate from one server to the next… that part was easy.

1 Hour

Exchange Migration

The bit that always destroys everyones migration.    My Internet address wizard is now working since I imported the cert, so that is one thing out of the way.

The documentation is telling me to setup my smarthost, done…   but it is also telling me to remove my inbound SMTP connector (which is then routing the mail to the new server internally).   I am going to leave that in place for the moment as I cannot get to the router to configure the change in inbound SMTP ports…   later…

No POP 3 connector for me to migrate.  Skipping that.

Next, started the move of the Public folders over after creating a new Exchange 2010 public folder.   My Source Beta server is SBS01, the new one is SBS.   I used these two commands….   the first gives me a set of stats on the Public folders to compare to later…  the second moves the replicas.

Get-PublicFolderStatistics –server SBS01 | fl | out-file C:\Users\sbsadmin\Documents\PFSBS01stat.txt

.\MoveAllReplicas.ps1 –Server SBS01 –NewServer SBS

I now have to wait up to 24 hours for the replication to move….   The command I will use to then get a new text output to compare to the first one above is:

Get-PublicFolderStatistics –server SBS | fl | out-file C:\Users\sbsadmin\Documents\PFSBSstat.txt

I’ll come back to this later to set the default public folder DB to be that on the new server, then remove the other one…

1.5 Hour.

More Exchange Migration

Move the Default Offline Address book – done, nice and easy.  Change the Web Based distribution server to the new one, also easy.   Lastly, set the default OAB for the new MailBox database.   Done!

Now I can kick off a mailbox move request (local) for all the Mailboxes on our server.   This will take a while, maybe overnight.   So, on that note, I am going to bed…. 

My recording the next morning shows it took my store 3 hours to move.   But this could change of course dependant on specific sites.

Turned on the circular logging on the new DB.

30 Mins

Sharepoint Migration

The backup of the database was easy, but restoring had a few gotcha’s that you should look out for.   First, the instructions did not give me in big red writing the fact that I had to run the SQL Management studio “as administrator”  It was bold, but I missed it a few times.   So, lesson learned people RUN AS ADMINISTRATOR to be able to restore the DB.

Second, I had to run a command to mount the restored DB as http://companyweb.  The same issue occurred and I had to give SBSAdmin user the full permissions to the database to get this to work.   Another one for the notebook!

1 Hour

Updates Updates Updates

This is a brand new product, and I have 36 critical updates and 20 optional.  That is an annoyance!

1.5 Hours (Wasted!)

Copy of file shares and user folders

Another easy, but time consuming step.  All went well using robocopy.

3 Hours – 58GB.

I am now live running SBS 2011!   Yay me, well worth the overnight migration.
Lets hope the staff can function tomorrow : )

Well, the time is nearly here.   Small Business Server 2011 is soon to be released to the masses, so start reading up here:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg490793.aspx

Via Susan Bradley

No point in posting the video twice

Well, I was going to do a fanfare and a great big long blogpost…. but since we have just had Twins added to the Whittome family I am going to use that as the best excuse ever to simply link to the official post over on the Official SBS Blog!

You should note the new Essentials edition, which is an obvious push by Microsoft to the cloud.  Not a bad thing!   Something that NTES have been doing for a couple of years now for our clients, so this product will be fantastic for our new and current client base.

Yay! Twins….    

Yay! SBS 2011….

Link here!

I really do not know what it is about the Sage Management and their underlying development team, but they never seem to finish anything!   I remember years ago when I was working for a Sage Solutions Centre in Dublin they must have tried to release a windows version of Sage Soverign (which later got named Line 100) about 5 times and always failed.

Then they told everyone about three years ago that they were working on a version of Sage 50 that used MySQL Database….  finally we all thought!  A version of Sage 50 that will actually NETWORK properly!   Gah!  I KNEW it was too good to be true.

I got a copy of this announcement today.   Unbelievable….   I think it must be time to look at an alternative product now for us and our customers.   The underlying Sage 50 (essentially flat file DOS format) data HAS to go, and QUICK!

http://communications.sage.com/lz/lz.aspx?p1=0534325S7351&w

Major FAIL from Sage…..

But it sure reminds me of the excitement it generates when snippet videos are released.   Unfortunately also I am not going to make it to this years MVP summit      That means that bribes and whisky won’t work this year.

The Microsoft Flight Team over at Microsoft have updated the site again, and put up another video.   Check it out.

Over the past couple of days (i’m behind I know!) Clearone Netstreams have released a bunch of cool stuff.   Its worth a blog post as some of this is a major change for the system.

First!   There is a completely overhauled and improved website – www.netstreams.com – which gives you a far better feel for the systems from Clearone Netstreams.

Next, the announcement of the iPod dock.   This will be cool, as we have been having to use the iPort with a MediaLinX device to achieve the same for our business and home users which was a pain.    Being able to have a device that simply connects to the DigiLinX network and allow people visiting our customers homes and businesses to simply dock and then have their music shared and indexed will be AWESOME!

Lastly, but not least.   Anthology is a product that (quoted from the site.)

“automatically scans for music stored on network attached storage devices and on PC’s. In addition to monitoring shared folders on PC’s and networked storage devices, Anthology also monitors its USB ports for USB storage devices that contain audio files, including iPods.

Internet Radio: Stream music to any room in your house. The Anthology can tune into thousands of stations of music, news, talk radio, sports. Streaming interned radio, your personal audio files or online services like Pandora, SIRIUS has never been this easy.”

All in all, this is good news from the Clearone Netstreams team, its great to see this product growing and advancing.

NTES, as an authorised Netstreams Dealer in Ireland, will assist customers with any questions on the above products and existing ones alike!  – http://www.ntes.ie  (We also will be releasing a completely new website shortly, so stay tuned!)

Lenovo appear to have screwed something up…..

If you have fingerprint software, or facial recognition software installed on your lenovo you are going to get the message “looking for credential tiles” stuck on your screen.

Uninstall that crap, and type your password in