>What a way to get back to work after Chinese New Year! We need to migrate an existing Windows 2000 Advanced Server with SQL Server 2000 to a new Windows Server 2003 with SQL Server 2005. Now, I’ve done a lot of SQL Server 2005 installations in the past but they are practically effortless as they were all new installations. You just need to plan properly and everything goes as plan. This one is totally different. We have an existing application which needs to be moved from an old box to a new one. One way to find out about the potential database issues during the upgrade is to use the SQL Server 2005 Upgrade Advisor. This tool analyzes instances of SQL Server 7.0 and SQL Server 2000 in preparation for upgrading to SQL Server 2005. Upgrade Advisor identifies feature and configuration changes that might affect your upgrade, and it provides links to documentation that describes each identified issue and how to resolve it. You install it on the existing SQL Server 2000 machine before you even start moving the databases to the new SQL Server 2005 box. For a more detailed information on your upgrade strategies, you can download the SQL Server 2005 Upgrade Technical Resource Guide. This document contains guidance for SQL Server administrators, developers, and IT decision makers who want to move their older version of SQL Server databases (v6.5 is not included) to SQL Server 2005.

Now, let’s see how we go this coming weekend. I’m crossing my fingers as the server also contains an ASP.NET web service running on .NET Framework 1.1. For those .NET developers out there, I think you know what I’m trying to drive at.