Upgrade to Windows Server 2008 R2

[Former Member]

Our SAP systems are currently running Windows Server 2003 R2 with SQL server 2005. Microsoft currently has a newer version of Windows Server 2008 R2 and SQL 2008 in release. Seeing that Windows has a newer OS out for release, would it be recommended that we upgrade our servers to the newer OS and SQL versions?

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi,

I would suggest a wait and watch, because SAP has started supporting Windows 2008 R2 only from the Q4 2010. There will be a lot of time and cost involved in upgrading your systems. Please note that you have to perform a OS/DB migration.

Note 1383873 - Windows Server 2008 R2 Support

Regards,

SBK

[markus_doehr2 · Accepted solution]

> I would suggest a wait and watch, because SAP has started supporting Windows 2008 R2 only from the Q4 2010. There will be a lot of time and cost involved in upgrading your systems. Please note that you have to perform a OS/DB migration.

I'm sorry but no "migration" needed - a system copy is enough (backup/restore).

Markus

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

We have a few new servers coming in with Server 2008 already installed on it so I would assume that there would be no compatibility issues with running our older servers with 2003 and new ones with 2008. Would I be correct in this assumption?

[markus_doehr2 · Accepted solution]

> We have a few new servers coming in with Server 2008 already installed on it so I would assume that there would be no compatibility issues with running our older servers with 2003 and new ones with 2008. Would I be correct in this assumption?

You mean that you will have different application servers on different oerating systems? Or different operating systems in the full landscape?

In any case, you can mix.

Markus

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Markus,

I'm sorry but no "migration" needed - a system copy is enough (backup/restore).

Jus a small clarification, in a note I read that Windows 2008 has the same kernel of Windows Vista and Windows 2008 R2 has the same kernel of Windows 7.

Just a system copy is enough for migrating from Windows 2003 to 2008? no need of a homogenous system copy?

Regards,

SBK

[markus_doehr2 · Accepted solution]

>

I

> Just a system copy is enough for migrating from Windows 2003 to 2008? no need of a homogenous system copy?

In terms of vocabulary this is the same.

Markus

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Sorry, I was meaning Heterogeneous system copy.

SBK

[markus_doehr2 · Accepted solution]

"Heterogeneous" means changing database system or operating syste mor both. Since you stay on Windows (you upgrade a version but the OS is the same) and you don't change the database it's homogeneous.

Markus

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Do you know what effort is involved with migrating the database from SQL 2005 to SQL 2008?

[markus_doehr2 · Accepted solution]

This is a matter of installing the new software and "upgrading" the database, easy. You can check the upgrade guides at

http://service.sap.com/instguides

--> Database upgrades

Make sure you have the the necessary support package in the system to run SQL Server 2008. I would even go for SQL 2008 R2 which has a better compression, so you'll save space on your harddisk and fewer reads --> faster.

Check

Note 1152240 - Setting Up Microsoft SQL Server 2008 (R2)

Note 1488135 - Database compression for SQL Server

Markus

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thank you all for all of your input. It's really helped me out a lot. We are currently using VMWare for our test environment. We were wondering if in our production environment if we are running SQL 2008 does the VMWare have to match the software that we are using in Production as in the test environment? I wouldn't imagine that the database would be downward compatible if we needed to bring a database up in a 2005 SQL environment. Would I be correct in assuming this?

[Former Member]

check service.sap.com/pam for product availability.

You can upgrade to latest OS / DB / SAP versions if your company has budget and required resources to do the job. You may need to perform few tests on QA systems before you do a upgrade of your DB/OS on production. This is a good size project. If your OS/DB/SAP landscape is stable then I suggest wait and do a proper plan with POC upgrade. And you may also think to have SAP upgrade ie EHP etc... So this will be in one go.

Also check existing OS/DB/SAP support period.

BTW: Just windows released new OS/DB not mean we must upgrade our application. Plan and check until the existing OS/DB is supported period.