I’m now mid-way through my 3rd SBS 2003 to SBS 2011 migration and having used the following article for ALL the migrations, have had nothing but success so far.
The current migration and my last migration are both being done on HP ML110 G6 servers, which initially caused a few headaches trying to install SBS 2011 from the DVD onto the internal HDD’s because once I had installed the relevant RAID controller drivers, the installation refused to continue, but this was solved and I wrote about this here:
The process is very simple, but by far the slowest part of the migration I have come across so far is making sure the SBS 2003 server is patched within an inch of it’s life.
I spent almost 8 hours yesterday installing SBS 2003 SP1, Exchange 2003 SP2 and numerous other patches onto the soon-to-be-retired SBS 2003 server, which didn’t seem to have a processor in the box it was going that slowly.
Today the SBS 2011 install was much quicker and the majority of the migration has been completed, with just the data, shares and user accounts to be moved, then it’s remove Exchange 2003 from the SBS 2003 server and then DCPROMO the box, reboot it and then put it out of it’s misery 🙂
Once that is out of the way – it’s SSL certificate time from http://www.exchange-certificates.com and then the job is complete in the 3 days that I have estimated it will take.
If you are planning your own SBS 2003 to SBS 2011 migration, then Demazter’s guide comes tried and tested by me and I would highly recommend it.
If you are not brave enough to tackle it yourself – then please get in touch and I can help you complete it remotely.
Alan
Filed under: Exchange 2003, Exchange 2010, Exchange Server, SBS, SBS 2011 | Tagged: Migration, ML110 G6, SBS 2003, SBS 2003 to SBS 2011 Migration, SBS 2011 |
Alan Hardisty's Blog - All Things IT Related 
Hi Alan,
What is the average time (in hours) it has taken for your SBS 2003 to SBS 2011 migrations.
Thanks and great posts!
So far I have completed the migrations in 3 days. Day one for server updates, checks and making sure it is in perfect health.
Day two spent building the new server in migration mode and getting most of the migration tasks completed apart from data migration.
After hours – data was transferred from old to new server.
Day three spent completing migration, setting up mapped drives, software deployment, printers etc and demoting, removing the old server.
All servers have been 5-10 users, and there was not masses of data to migrate, but enough to take a few hours in the evening.
Hope that helps.
In terms of hours:
8 hours per day (approx) and a couple of hours to transfer the data.
If you make sure the server is fully patched and happy before you start, you can happily strip 8 hours off the total time!
Hi Alan,
Thanks for the post…Did you remove exchange 2003 from SBS 2003?
I have successfully migrated the SBS 2003 to Server 2008 and moved mailboxes and public folders to Server 2008.
Then finally decided to uninstall Exchange 2003 from SBS server and removal did NOT finish error free, there were an error (forgot the error) uninstall finished but I still can see in services:
Microsoft Exchange Event
Microsoft IMAP4
Microsoft Exchange inormation store
Microsoft Exchange management Stacks
Microsoft POP3
Microsoft Exhchange routing engine
Microsoft Exchange site replication service
Microsoft Exchange system attendant
If I go to Start–> All prog.—>Microsoft Exchange 2003 I find there is NOTHING but a Outlook Web administation icon.
If I try to run exchange setup to remove it I fine only UPDATE option there not REMOVE.
Please help how can I get it uninstalled?