Windows Server 2008R2 64bit -> 2012 -> 2016

[matthewbigfixuser]

Hello,
I have server 9.5.5.193 (patch 5) in a 2008R2 VM and a relay running on another 2008R2 VM
2008R2 is losing support and I need to upgrade
I would like to just upgrade the OS and leave everything else for now
Has anyone tried doing an in-place upgrade of their OS to 2012? 2012->2016?
How did it go? I couldn’t find compatibility info or OS upgrade info, just “use windows 2008+” under tech specs

Thanks!

[JasonWalker]

I have customers who have upgraded 2008r2 -> 2012r2 -> 2016 without any real issue. You should probably stop & disable BESClient and BESRelay until finished, so the client doesn’t reset if the OS upgrade encounters an issue and rolls-back.

Note for Upgrades you won’t be able to use a captured image, you need original 2012r2 and 2016 media.

In most cases I advocate for wipe-and-reload, but for the most part upgrades seem to work ok.

[matthewbigfixuser]

So I updated my main relay (windows server 2008r2 -> 2012r2 -> 2016) without issue. Had to reinstall .net because server manager wouldn’t come up but that was it.
The root server upgraded but upon bootup the root server service was set to automatic but didn’t start automatically. I manually started it and it started up, but the diagnostic tool gave me some errors about dbfill and gatherdb, so I got concerned other things were going to be broken as well and I rolled back.
The SQL database is remote.
Next I’m going to clone the root server VM without a NIC and try this again offline but see if I can fix this with a reinstall of the server software or upgrade to the newest version.
What I’m not sure about is how thoroughly I can test while only having it offline. At least all of the services should start. Without the SQL database I’m not sure how far I can get.
In reviewing past notes on our system I found out bes gather service is purposely off and its possible part of my concern was unfounded as our config is non-standard (?)
I’m going to run the diagnostics tool beforehand next time and do a more thorough comparison of how things look before/after
I’ve never done any bigfix administration, just trying to get this thing off 2008 as quick as I can

[JasonWalker]

Sorry, I may have misread your initial post, I thought you were only doing the relays.

I’ve not tried upgrading the OS on the root server itself. You’d probably be better served there performing a Root Server Migration as described at https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/wikis/home?lang=en#!/wiki/Tivoli+Endpoint+Manager/page/Server+Migration

Also you should be sure to understand the details of your config. I’ve not encountered any where BESGather should be disabled, so try to understand the reasoning for that first.

[matthewbigfixuser]

This worked fine, 2008->2012->2016
I also got a nice speed bump later on by using the 2017 odbc drivers and putting in new connections

[JasonWalker]

Glad to hear it! Thanks for updating.

[Giorgio]

Hi Jason,
I also have to do a update in-place from 2008 to 2016 of the BigFix system and I would need the information at the link you highlighted. But that link no longer exists, can you give me information on where I can find it now? Thanks
Giorgio

[itsmpro92]

It is now here: https://bigfix-wiki.hcltechsw.com/wikis/home?lang=en-us#!/wiki/BigFix%20Wiki/page/Server%20Migration