migration file server

[Joeri KUMBRUCK]

Hello all,

I would like to migrate a file server to another file server. Problem
is, I want to do this so it's seamless for the endusers. I have the
following plan:

1) copy data from old file server to new file server
2) shutdown old file server and change IPaddress of new fileserver
into ipaddress of old fileserver
3) check DNS that A records of old server and new server are pointing
to the same IPaddress
4) delete records of old server out of WINS

The reason why I want to do it this way, is because a lot of users
(2000 users in total) manually created some network mappings to
shared folders of the file server. So normally if they reboot their
machines (so local DNS cache is flushed) and they logon to the domain
and DNS and WINS are replicated to all DNS and WINS servers, they
should get their mappings just the same as before but this time they
are pointing to the new file server.
This is my thought, but I don't have a clue if this works. Any advise
is welcome.
If there are other ways of doing this, please let me know.

thanks in advance for any help,

Joeri Kumbruck

 

[Dan DeStefano]

i dont believe you can have multiple host names point to the same ip
address. the other way around works (single host name pointing to multiple
ip addresses) and uses round-robin.
why not just do this off-hours and rename the old server, bring up the new
server with the old server's name, recreate shares on new server, transfer
data from old server to new?
another way to do it to make it transparent to users would be via dfs.
however, if you have no plans to implement dfs, then that may be a bit too
much solution.

Dan

 

[Joeri KUMBRUCK]

Hi Dan,

all true,
I can create a CNAME in DNS to refer the old file servename to the new file
server name.
The reason why I can't rename the new file server to the old file server's
name, is because there is also a database running on the old file server, and
we still need it there.
Any other suggestions?

 

[Dan DeStefano]

will the old server remain in production? if so, then i see no other option
then informing the users of the change. if not, then can this database
application be taken ofline briefly to perform the change (i assume if the
old server will be decomissioned that the database will be moved to the new
server or an alternate server, right?).

Dan