Hi all,

I have 1 Primary Site Server running on a physical box, the OS is currently Server 2012, with a local SQL DB. I also have 2 remote DP's

I need to:

• Virtualize the primary site server
• Upgrade the OS to Server 2012 R2
• Rename the server
• Move the DB to a remote SQL cluster
• Change the install location of SCCM to another drive, on the new server
• Keep the site code the same

Which of the above are possible? Would appreciate any help

Thanks in advance!

You can Virtualize the server.

Renaming the server is not supported.

You can't change the installation location to another drive, if you wanted to rename and have the installation on another drive you might have to consider migrating everything to a new install.

If you are building a new site you can keep the same site code but I would always create a new one to make trouble shooting easier.

You can do an in place upgrade from 2012 to 2012 R2 of the OS.

In-place upgrade from Windows Server 2012 to Windows Server 2012 R2.

http://www.systemcenterblog.nl/2012/06/01/moving-a-configmgr-2012-database-to-a-sql-cluster/

https://stevethompsonmvp.wordpress.com/2014/12/20/why-you-should-not-use-remote-sql-server-with-configmgr-2012/

• Edited by Richard.Knight 17 hours 1 minutes ago

You could build the remote SQL cluster and new VM and restore from back the SQL and primary site server. 

This would allow you to change the install location and achieve all EXCEPT renaming the site server which is not supported.

My question would be - why remote SQL?

You don't state what version of ConfigMgr, but this might be a good case for a 2012-2012 migration.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg682006.aspx

Jeff

This would allow you to change the install location

Jeff - not if he needs to keep the site code. 

George250 - ultimately you won't be able to satisfy all your requirements since renaming the site server is not supported.

Hi George,

Please find the comments below.

• Virtualize the primary site server - You can take the backup SCCM & SQL backup of the existing SCCM environment, shut-down the server.
• Upgrade the OS to Server 2012 R2 - You can build the new OS with Windows 2012 R2
• Rename the server - Not possible, you can use the same name.
• Move the DB to a remote SQL cluster - Possible
• Change the install location of SCCM to another drive, on the new server : Yes, you can restore procedure.
• Keep the site code the same : Yes, possible.

Cheers,

Kannan.CS

This would allow you to change the install location

But this does not allow to change the directory where ConfigMgr is installed

Thanks for the info, everyone.

I can live with keeping the server name and disk configs, but I don't want to do an in place OS upgrade from 2012 to 2012 R2, this was a nightmare last time I did it... besides, it's going to be virtualized anyway, so I would either have to P2V it or build a new VM and copy over all files/configs/etc..

I beefed up my SQL cluster and want to centralize all DB's. Don't want to run SQL in VM's

I was really hoping to do a clean SCCM 2012 R2 SP1 install (when SP1 is released in a week) and use the same SITE CODE, and then phase out the old primary server.

Do I have any other options in my situation?

Thanks