I have a powerful piece of hardware: 4 CPU, 10GB RAM, 40 X 15K SAS drives running Windows Server 2003 Enterprise 32 bit with 32 bit SQL Server. This is a consolidated server with 124 databases and many applications connected. For serveral reasons...primarly SharePoint 2010 on the horizon, I need to migrate this server to 64 bit OS and 64 bit SQL (the majority of DB's on this server currently service a young SharePoint install which is definitely growing).
Since there is no upgrade path from 32 bit to 64 bit (OS or SQL), I need to identify the correct method for migration.
I'm planning to install a brand new OS and SQL install and then develope a migration procedure for all DB's. Is there a good way to do this? The last time I tried this was with SQL 2000 and it was a nightmare. I had to manually drop and recreate all server/db users and recreate them (not all were documented...which is a problem again for me now) and I'm hoping there is a slam dunk migration process for this situation these days.
Please let me know...all input welcome.
Thanks. RH