We will be refreshing our hardware after the upgrade to 7.0. As you may know we had some issues caused by restoring the production database on a second server prior to updating the HOST file. OUCH… So, the questions are:
Does BigFix have a documented process to move the database? We are moving from Windows 2003 SP1, with SQL 2000 SP4, to a Windows 2003 x64, with SQL 2005. I would like to do this without having all the machines doing a Client Reset because of the DatabaseID. And make this a very smooth transistion.
I can help put together a migration plan for you to move your BES Server onto new hardware. There are a few other posts that discuss migration plans for the BES Server and there is a kb article:
It sounds like you ran into a problem caused when you have two BES Server installed using the same masthead and DNS entry. If you propagate an action on the secondary server without a HOSTS file override for the DNS, that action gets propagated to the main BES Server using the DNS alias and causes a problem. This particular problem can be avoided in 2 ways:
Make sure you enter provide a HOSTS file override for the DNS alias of the BES Server on the primary BES Server, the secondary BES Server and any computer that will become a BES Server.
Don’t propagate actions on the backup BES Servers while the primary BES Server is operational.
For your migration plan, I think that the KB article is a good start since SQL is local to the BES Servers. In your case I would modify the procedure to include steps for ensuring the HOSTS file is set correctly on all the BES Servers.