SQL 2000 to 2005 Upgrade

[goosed]

Hi all, I'm planning an upgrade from SQL 2000 to 2005 on my server. I've verified with all the software vendors that they are compliant with 2005. My question is about the upgrade itself. Can I just download and install the upgrade? Or will I need to take databases offline, uninstall/reinstall software, etc.

This is my first SQL server upgrade and any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

[rmiao]

You have to get sql2k5 installation package first. Can do in place upgrade or install sql2k5 as new instance then move sql2k dbs over by backup/restore.

[goosed]

Thank you for the reply. Do you think it's easier to do an in place upgrade or a new instance with a backup/restore? I'd really like to do this with the least amount of downtime as possible. Thank you again.

[Island1]

A "side by side" scenario, where you upgrade a copy to 2k5, while maintaining the original 2k installation, affords many advantages. This is easily done, and allows you to compare reports, etc., in both worlds, to ascertain that all has gone well, before completely leaving 2k behind.

It also allows staging of AS, RS and the relational components, if these are considerations. I've done this scores of times, with great success.

Let us know if you have further questions.

Good Luck,

Bill

[rmiao]

Yes, side by side upgrade has less down time. But you need modify all apps to point to new sql2k5 instance.

[Island1]

I totally agree with my colleague - side-by-side also offers advantages in "retro-paralleling," which can save much time in testing 2k5 for acceptance - you just have to remember the staleness of the 2k data once you point 2k5 to the prospectively operational apps (which are no longer pumping into the 2k RDBMS).

Again, keep us posted on your experiences!

Bill

[goosed]

Thanks again for the replies. This next question is probably stupid.. can I have the 2005 instance on the same server as the 2000 one?

[Island1]

You certainly can ... you'll just have to install 2k5 after 2k is already in place (and the 2k5 installation will therefore not be a simple "Server Name" instance, as that instance will already be taken, by default, by 2k).

You might want to consider the resource requirement, too, however ... running both on the same Production machine, for example, might be a bit of a resource challenge, but that is mitigated, somewhat, by the fact that you won't likely be doing heavy operations in both simultaneously - you can even make the 2k services "manual" versus "auto-start" to minimze their impact when you're not actively using 2k ...

Let us know if we can assist further ...

Bill