Addition of Migration Tools

Beyond the standard migration tools that help administrators migrate from one version of Active Directory to another, or to perform an in-place upgrade from one version of Windows to another, Windows Server 2008 R2 has migration tools to help administrators move entire server roles from one system to another. These new tools provide migration paths from physical servers to virtual servers, or from virtual servers to physical servers. Other tools allow for the migration of DHCP configuration and lease information from one server to another. These tools and the prescriptive guidance help administrators migrate servers more easily than ever before.



Operating System Migration Tools
Windows Server 2008 R2 provides tools that help administrators migrate from older versions of the Windows Server operating system to Windows Server 2008 R2. The supported migration paths are as follows:

. Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Server 2008 R2—These operating systems can be migrated to Windows Server 2008 R2 using the operating system migration tools and guidance documentation. . x86 and x64—Servers can be migrated from x86 to x64 and from x64 to x64 with limitations. Because Windows Server 2008 R2 is an x64 operating system only, there is no in-place upgrade support from x86 to x64, so the upgrade path is a server-toserver transition, not in-place. However, x64 to x64 in-place is supported as long as any applications sitting on the server can be upgraded from one x64 platform to the Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 platform.

. Full Server and ServerCore—Operating system migration from Full Server to ServerCore and from ServerCore to Full Server are supported typically as a server toserver migration because in-place migrations between Full Server and ServerCore have limitations. The GUI needs to be added or removed and, thus, applications are typically migrated rather than complete operating system migrations between the platforms.

. Physical and virtual—Virtualization of guest sessions is the de facto standard in data centers these days and the implementation of applications on virtual guest sessions is the norm. As such, organizations wanting to migrate from physical server configurations to virtual guest sessions can leverage the migration tools and guidance available in performing server and application migrations to virtual server roles.



Server Role Migrations
Included in Windows Server 2008 R2 are tools and guidance that help administrators migrate server roles to Windows Server 2008 R2 server systems. The supported migration paths are as follows:

. Active Directory Domain Services—The migration from Active Directory 2003 and Active Directory 2008 to Active Directory 2008 R2 is fully supported.

. DNS and DHCP migrations—New migration tools are available that help administrators migrate their DNS and DHCP servers from running on previous versions of Windows to servers running Windows Server 2008 R2, and not only just the service configurations but also DNS and DHCP data. In the past, the migration of DHCP to a new server usually meant the loss of DHCP lease information. With the new migration tools in Windows Server 2008 R2, an administrator can now migrate the server configuration as well as the lease data, including lease expiration data, as part of the migration process.

. File and print migrations—Included in the migration tools for Windows Server 2008 R2 are features that migrate file data, included file permissions, and the migration of print server configurations and settings from older servers to new Windows Server 2008 R2 configurations. These migration tools help simplify the process of updating servers from old server systems to new systems with the least amount of impact on the organization and drastically simplify the process of migration for domain administrators.

Source of Information : Sams - Windows Server 2008 R2 Unleashed