Friday, January 18, 2013

My Nightmare with SBS 2003 to 2011 Migration

So where do I begin. Do I start where I told the client that this could be done, and when i did tell them did I also tell them it was going to be a piece of cake and easy? Hmm, I must have, then I had a brainfart because it turned out to be everything but what I told them (drat, no....double drat, lol) I must have been out of my mind to think that an instruction sheet would allow me to do this in 12-24 hours. More like from 12 hours to a week. There is a lot to begin to swallow with a project like this so I'll start with the setup:

My setup consists of:

2 VMware ESXi 4.1 servers with the following specs

Dell PowerEdge 2950 w/ 4GB RAM Dual 2.0GHz Processors 400GB RAID5 drive

Custom built server with 12GB RAM / Quad Core 2.2GHz Procs / 3 - 1.5TB HD's

configured with ESXi 4.1 Hypervisor and put on separate servers

The three servers will consist of the following

2 clones of the current network servers: SBS03 (2003) and DC2 (2008r2)

1 vm will consist of SBS 2011 which will be the final result after the migration:
SBS11 (2008r2) and DC2 (2008r2)

I will be following the guide supplied by: http://blog.mpecsinc.ca/2011/05/sbs-2003-to-sbs-2011-migration-guide.html which by the way is a very good guide to follow...

So I start out by making sure that the two current clones have all the updates and necessary prerequisites before attempting to start the migration. Once those are done, I then start to follow the instructions provided by the site above. Special thanks to the site at blog.mpecsinc.ca they were most helpful in this endeavor.

So we finally were able to make headway on this near impossible to complete project.
Started with the 3 vm's snapshot at the point where they are ready to move forward with the Migration portion of the project.
Found an article that stated that another user with administrative rights other than the administrator should be created to complete migration correctly.
Created a user on the test WM network named bbaccus with administrative rights.
Started the migration with the new credentials attached and the process began.


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After about 5 hours the message popped up:
Active Directory replication is taking longer than expected. You can choose whether to continue waiting.
Went to GU and found article and instructions below:
On the source server:
Load regedit and change the following key:
HK_LM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\NTFrs\Parameters\Backup\Restore\Process at Startup – change the BurFlags key to decimal 4.

On the destination server:
Press CTRL-ALT-DELETE, load task manager, then click on file select run and enter regedit to change the following keys
HK_LM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\NTFrs\Parameters\Backup\Restore\Process at Startup – change the BurFlags key to decimal 2
HK_LM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Netlogon\Parameters – change the SysVolReady key to decimal 1.

Next restart stop and start the File Replication service on both the source and destination machines. (On the destination machine hit CTRL-ALT-DELETE, click on file, select run and enter services.msc)
The migration should then continue as normal.
Source of this answer is: http://www.tt-systems.co.uk/blogs-of-an-it-engineer/entry/sbs-migration-active-directory-replication-is-taking-longer-than-expected.html

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Resumed migration by selecting "yes" on pop up and migration seems to be moving, however same error popped up several times, tried to repeat process but as the hours were going by, I opted to hit "no" on error instead.
Migration went on for about another 1.5 hours than finished with following errors:
Exchange 2010 cannot be installed
Incoming and Outgoing e-mail for Microsoft Sharepoint Foundation are not configured.

Found article that claimed to work so I tried it:
If you are getting this error message, you need to completely remove Exchange 2007 and then run all of the preps from a command line:
setup /prepareschema
setup /preparedomain
setup /preparelegacyexchangepermissions
setup /preparead      (this is the one that actually creates the Exchange Administrative Group)

setup.com is found in the root of the E2K7 DVD
In order to run these you need to have the appropriate permissions. Make sure you have Schema Admin and Enterprise Admin permissions.
After you have finished these steps, rerun setup.exe or click the install link from the DVD autorun.
Source: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/exchangesvrdeploy/thread/375f92ef-01c6-4a1c-8bdd-dcfe203fc396/

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Tried those options, then ran the setup, and VOILA, the hub transport actually installed!!!
Went back and installed the other roles: Client Transport and Mail Transport
Both installed fine, after that was completed a new error popped up that says that Exchange is in evaluation mode for 120 days and needs a serial number to be licensed.

Found article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2527626 and ran Hotfix Download that actually will license server automatically which it did.

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Now I am able to move forward through the migration path and get the rest of the items moved over.
The following tasks on the migration path have now been completed so far:
Migrate Data
Configure network settings
Configure internet address
Migrate network settings

Migrate Exchange mailboxes and settings: this one has some extra items that you have to complete before it will let you move on to the next phase.
Remove legacy group policies and logon settings
Migrate users and shared data: This is current where I am now.


I am using syncback to migrate all user data with original folder dates and permissions and will update once this portion is completed. This is also the section where I will be merging the sharepoint data to retain the clients calendar and data as they use this calendar daily...wish me luck, : D



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