Upgrading to R2 – Sometimes thinking outside the box is needed

At a customers site multiple OpsMgr SP1 Management Groups had to be upgraded. The first really went smooth. All went well and within a couple of hours R2 was running like clockwork. Time to move on the next MG, also the most important one.

Here the upgrade didn’t run smooth. This MG had a ‘past’. Long long time ago it started as a ‘All-In-One’ server. So the RMS hosted the OpsMgr DBs as well. But the performance was poor. A dedicated SQL 2005 server was built and the OpsMgr DBs were moved to this server. All done by the book. The registry entries on the RMS were changed accordingly and the table in the OpsMgr DB, stating the SQL server was changed as well. And all worked fine. For almost a year since the DBs had been moved, no issues what so ever.

Until today. The upgrade process stopped dead in it tracks stating the SQL server couldn’t be found at all. But hey, I am a lucky guy and as soon as I was through all my tricks I contacted two highly respected colleagues/OpsMgr friends. Even with their help and advise the problem kept on coming back biting me. So time for an alternative approach before making a PSS call. And believe me, with the three of us, many options were (double) checked and tried but all to no avail.

This MG also runs a Management Server which was installed AFTER the DBs were moved to the dedicated SQL server. So why not promote this MS to RMS – for a short while – and run the upgrade process from there?

This is what I did:

1. Made a valid backup of the OpsMgr DB (was already done, never run an upgrade without it)
2. Promoted the MS
3. Demoted the RMS
4. Upgraded the new RMS and the OpsMgr DB to R2
5. Tried to upgrade the old RMS. Still no luck!
6. Removed OpsMgr from the old RMS server
7. Reinstalled OpsMgr R2 on that server
8. Upgraded OpsMgr Reporting
9. Promoted the new MS to RMS
10. Demoted the temp. RMS to MS

And all is well now. A bit frustrating it is not knowing what went wrong. The log file revealed nothing solid to go on. But sometimes it is better to cook up a good workable and acceptable solution and to move on. :)