Hi, I need some general advice. I have been given a project to upgrade an SMS estate than is used to manage several thousand PCs. I'm looking at doing an inplace or side by side migration. The current setup uses a single SMS 2003 server (Windows Server 2003) SP2 on SQL 2000, I'm looking at using a new servers with Server 2008 and SQL 2008. The main things I want to keep are some of my packages, other than that I'm not overly concerned about the current data. 1. I know doing an in place upgrade will keep the data and packages, but I want to use new hardware - is this possible? 2. Bearing in mind, I want to keep my packages, would a more elegant solution be a side by side migration and then use a tool to transfer the packages across? 3. Another reason for the side by side upgrade is that we want to be able to manage clients with limited down time, however how long should it take to upgrade an estate with several thousand PCs and 1 SMS server within a fast corporate LAN - I'm thinking a weekend should cover it(?) Thanks IT Support/Everything

1#/2# You can doing an in place upgrade of your SMS 2003 to CM07 then attach your new CM07 as a child site, when replication ends and packages are in your new DP you break that relationship. Or another good way is to use 1E migration tool http://www.1e.com/it-efficiency/downloads/1e-tools/ 3# It depends on many factors, a consultant can help you better than here. Bechir Gharbi | My blog: @myITforum.com | Twitter: @Bechir_Gharbi | Linkedin: Bechir Gharbi | Time zone: GMT + 1

1#/2# You can doing an in place upgrade of your SMS 2003 to CM07 then attach your new CM07 as a child site, when replication ends and packages are in your new DP you break that relationship. Or another good way is to use 1E migration tool http://www.1e.com/it-efficiency/downloads/1e-tools/ 3# It depends on many factors, a consultant can help you better than here. Bechir Gharbi | My blog: @myITforum.com | Twitter: @Bechir_Gharbi | Linkedin: Bechir Gharbi | Time zone: GMT + 1

1#/2# You can doing an in place upgrade of your SMS 2003 to CM07 then attach your new CM07 as a child site, when replication ends and packages are in your new DP you break that relationship. Or another good way is to use 1E migration tool http://www.1e.com/it-efficiency/downloads/1e-tools/ 3# It depends on many factors, a consultant can help you better than here. Bechir Gharbi | My blog: @myITforum.com | Twitter: @Bechir_Gharbi | Linkedin: Bechir Gharbi | Time zone: GMT + 1