Hi Guys, I would like to know if there will be any BIG Problems experienced doing the following : Site Design : 1 x Central Site Server (in Datacentre A) 2 x Primary Site Servers (Primary 1 in Datacentre A and Primary 2(Physical box) in Datacentre B) 21 Secondary Sites connected to Primary 1 8 Secondary Sites connected to Primary 2 We making a change to the Environment that will be Consolidating Datacentre B into Datacentre A : Because of the Locations the following has been proposed. An Engineer will go to Datacentre B and do the Following : Convert the Physical box into a VM and Switch off the Physical Box The VM will be put on a External Storage and be Brought to Datacentre A and Imported into the VM infrastructure. Problem is that the server will only be imported 2-3 weeks later. We understand that Reporting will not show accurate numbers and the Site Status will report errors. But im a bit worried that the Sites are not going to communicate once imported and switched on. You advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Clinton

This is just me thinking out loud, but what's the purpose of having 2 Child Primary Sites "side by side" in Datacentre A? What are you gaining with that? Support for 200,000 clients (100k per child primary)?Otherwise the main problem will be for those 2-3 weeks your clients belonging to Child Primary 2 will be virtually unmanaged. That's ok? And 2-3 weeks sounds like way too long for a parent/child relationship to last. This might not be true anymore, but I thought there was something in how parent/child relationships work, and if the parent cannot contact the child for more than 7 days, it kind of orphans it. If if were me, I'd break the parent/child relationship between central and Primary 2, and then re-enable the parent-child relationship after it's working independently in DataCentre A. (Well, ok, that's not true, I probably wouldn't move Child Primary 2 to Datacentre A: I'd reassign all the clients to Child Primary 1, and then just kill Primary 2 completely, unless there was some really, really good technical reason to keep two child primaries in 1 physical location).Standardize. Simplify. Automate.

Hi Sherry, Sorry I Forgot to add an important Point. We have 2 Domains in the Same Forest which are looked after. We do not have PKI infrastructure in place Either. Primary 1 looks after Domain A Primary 2 looks after Domain B Please bare in mind this is my 1st enviroment with any Management kind of software eg. SMS/SCCM. And i did not implement it. As far as I understand there is noway to change the Secondary Sites servers to point to a new Primary site without have to Re-install SCCM at Each affected Secondary site. We are looking for the simplest way to move the server without any major infrastructure change. So to simplify my question. What is the longest period a Child Primary Server can be offline before it cause any major issues. I would prefer to have it switched off and brought into the new Datacentre the following Day or 2 at the latest, but many other factors play a role. Regards Clinton

Multiple domains in the same forest do not require seperate primary sites. As I recall you can re-part a secondary without reinstalling it.I would not turn off a primary site for more than a couple hours if it has clients assigned to it. John Marcum | http://www.TrueSec.com/en/Training.htm | http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/jmarcum

I was wrong! "You cannot change a secondary site's parent site without uninstalling the secondary site and reinstalling it as assigned to a different primary site." http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb694189.aspx John Marcum | http://www.TrueSec.com/en/Training.htm | http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/jmarcum

Hi All,Thought I should update this Thread. Well we switched off our 1 Primary Server and it was off for almost 2 weeks. This weekend we imported the VM and changed the IP and within a couple of hours the Secondary Sites were communicating with it. So far i have not seen any problems but If i do pick up anything then I will post it here.RegardsClinton