August 26, 2013 at 9:49 am
First, before anyone yells at me that in-place upgrades are crazy talk and just install SQL2012 clean, I have *NO* control over these machines, and likely little input into the process anyways. This is for a migration of our in-house Sharepoint to another facilitys' SQL infrastructure, and one of the Sharepoint guys asked me about upgrading.
Anyways.
The plan the SP guy suggested would be for the new facility to snapshot their SP SQL server (presuming it's a VM,) then take backups of all the DBs on the SQL, then in-place upgrade. The bail-out plan would be to (if needed) restore the VM snapshot, then if needed restore the DBs from the backups taken just after the snapshot.
To me, this sounds like a reasonable plan presuming a clean load of a new SQL Server isn't an option. You've got backups of the DBs, plus you can restore the VM back to how it was before you did anything.
Thanks,
Jason A.
(as for why I'm worrying about this if I'm not going to be involved? If someone asks me a question I want to give them the best answer I can.)
August 26, 2013 at 10:58 am
Seems reasonable. I might pause the SQL instance when the VM snapshot occurs, just because I'm paranoid, but otherwise you should be fine.
In place upgrades work. They're just scary if something goes wrong as you can have extended downtime. Barring that, this seems fine.
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August 26, 2013 at 11:04 am
Cool, thanks!
I thought it sounded reasonable, as you've got several options in case the upgrade goes wrong:
1. Restore VM snapshot
2. Restore snapshot and DB backups
3. Load up a new VM / SQL and restore DB backups
There isn't really a need for an "update resume" step.
Of course, I'm glad this isn't going to be my problem, other than being the guy who told our Sharepoint guy that it sounds like a reasonable plan...
:w00t:
August 26, 2013 at 3:17 pm
Update to SQL 2012 from what? I haven't had any issues moving from SQL 2008R2 but have had a few issues with older editions.
What version of SharePoint? Again, I have had fewer issues upgrading the SQL server on more recent versions. Is this MOSS/Enterprise or Foundation/WSS?
While I do enjoy using SQL 2012 and we are using it for most current projects, what benefits are you looking at by moving to SQL 2012? Again, I love moving on to the latest greatest tools but would rather keep stable systems alone.
But yes, when I do an upgrade in our virtual environment, which is about everything we do at the corp office, I will make sure I do a backup of the VM first in case I have to roll back the system. Sadly, I have had to roll back quite a few upgrades due to botched application upgrades. On my SQL 2012 systems, I have had quite a few folder permission issues after rolling back the system which is something that I have yet to experience on my SQL 2008R2 systems. All of them fixable but it takes time and some head banging.
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