Migrating to Configuration Manager 2007 : Side-by-Side Migrations

Whereas an in-place upgrade provides the advantage of preserving your SMS 2003 sites and settings, a side-by-side migration may be more appropriate if you plan major changes to your SMS environment. Carrying out a side-by-side migration includes the following tasks:

• Standing up new Configuration Manager 2007 sites with new site codes alongside your existing SMS 2003 sites.

• Migrating site boundaries, clients, and database objects from your existing SMS hierarchy to the new ConfigMgr sites.

• Removing any entries published by the old sites from Active Directory and WINS. If you will continue to use your old site systems for other purposes, you should review their Active Directory group memberships and remove them from any groups that are no longer required.

Migrating Site Boundaries

As part of a side-by-side migration, you will need to assign site boundaries manually to your ConfigMgr sites and remove the corresponding boundaries from your SMS sites. The important point is that site boundaries should never overlap, because overlapping boundaries will cause serious problems for both SMS and ConfigMgr clients. Clients use site boundaries to determine their site assignment and to receive policy and content from the appropriate sites. Overlapping boundaries can cause unpredictable results for operations that depend on clients correctly determining what site they are located in, such as software distribution.

You should first remove site boundaries from the SMS sites you plan to decommission, and allow time for replication before adding the boundaries to your new ConfigMgr sites. Before adding boundaries to one of your ConfigMgr sites, remove any boundaries from your SMS sites that would contain any part of the IP address space or AD sites that will comprise the ConfigMgr site boundaries. To delete a site boundary in SMS 2003, perform the following steps:

Figure 1 shows the SMS 2003 Site Boundaries dialog box.

Figure 1. The SMS 2003 Site Boundaries dialog box

Migrating Clients

Several methods are available to migrate your existing SMS 2003 clients to your new ConfigMgr sites. Here are the major options:

• Use any of the client deployment methods that allow you to specify a site code to assign the clients to the new site at the same time they are upgraded. For example, you might run the command CCMSETUP.EXE /noservice SMSSITECODE=xyz, where xyz is the client’s new site code. You can also use client push installation to upgrade clients and assign them to their new site code. 

• Use SMS 2003 software deployment to advertise a package for reassigning the clients. One way to create a package for site assignment is to use a Visual Basic script (VBScript) similar to the following:

  On Error Resume Next
  dim oSMSClient
  set oSMSClient = CreateObject ("Microsoft.SMS.Client")
  oSMSClient.SetAssignedSite "ABC",0
  set oSMSClient=nothing

  Your program command line will then be cscript.exe <path to vb script><script name>.vbs. The <path> is not required if your package includes source files and the script is in the root of the package source directory.

  Because you have probably already removed the boundaries from your SMS site, your clients will treat your distribution points as remote. You will therefore need to select the option in your advertisement settings to either download or run from a remote distribution point when the package is not available on a local distribution point.

• If the SMS console (“Right Click”) tools are installed, you can right-click a collection or individual SMS client and use the tools to reassign all clients in the collection. The console tools will attempt to connect to each system in the collection and initiate the site change; therefore, any clients that are offline or otherwise inaccessible will not receive the site change.

• Log on to an individual client machine and change the site code on the Advanced tab of the Control Panel Systems Management applet.

You will generally want to use one of the first two methods listed here to migrate most of your client systems. The last two methods are useful for picking up any clients missed by your primary migration method.

Migrating SMS Database Objects

The most common way to preserve the objects you have created in SMS database, such as packages and collections, is to temporarily join your new ConfigMgr central site to the existing SMS hierarchy. Because a ConfigMgr site cannot be a child of an SMS 2003 site, this means you will need to do one of the following:

• Upgrade your existing SMS 2003 central site to ConfigMgr before joining the new site to it. Although this should not affect the rest of your SMS hierarchy, it does require that the existing central site meet all the ConfigMgr system requirements.

• Install your new ConfigMgr central site as an SMS 2003 SP 2 or higher site, join it to the existing SMS 2003 hierarchy, allow the objects to replicate, and then detach the site. You can then upgrade the site to Configuration Manager 2007.

  Alternatively, you can use a temporary site to transfer the objects. You can build an SMS 2003 site, perhaps as a virtual machine (VM), join it to your production SMS hierarchy, allow replication to complete, and then detach it from the SMS hierarchy. You will then upgrade the temporary site to ConfigMgr, remove any objects you no longer need, and make your new ConfigMgr production site a child of the temporary site. After the objects replicate to your permanent ConfigMgr site, detach your permanent ConfigMgr central site from the temporary site and decommission the temporary site. This method is a bit more work but allows you to have a clean ConfigMgr installation for your permanent site rather than upgrading, and it does not require you to upgrade your production SMS central site.

Queries and reports do not replicate down the hierarchy. You must export these objects from the SMS sites where they are defined and import them into your ConfigMgr site. Microsoft also has tools available for migrating SMS objects to ConfigMgr. These tools are not publicly available; contact your Microsoft support representative if you are interested in using these tools.