How to upgrade ConfigMgr to the latest version along with upgrading OS and SQL

Here is a step by step upgrade path from System Center Configuration Manager 2012 SP2 hosted on Windows Server 2012 R2 to System Center Configuration Manager 1702 or later hosted on Windows Server 2016.

These steps can be used if you want to upgrade Configuration Manager 2012 R2, R2 SP1 or SP2 version to Configuration Manager 1702, or upgrade your environment to the latest operating system and SQL server.

I strongly recommend you read Upgrade to System Center Configuration Manager before following the upgrade path.

Important points to remember:

• You can directly upgrade Configuration Manager 2012 R2 ,R2 SP1 or SP2 to 1702, no update installation is required.
• You will need to run TestDBupgrade before upgrading the Configuration Manager 2012 SP1 environment to Configuration Manager 1702. (If we are using standalone media for 1702)
• You will need to download Configuration Manager 1702 setup files from your volume licensing website. When you have version 1702 baseline media, you can upgrade the following to a fully licensed version of System Center Configuration Manager version 1702:
  • An evaluation install of System Center Configuration Manager version 1702
  • System Center 2012 Configuration Manager with Service Pack 1
  • System Center 2012 Configuration Manager with Service Pack 2
  • System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager
  • System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager with Service Pack 1

Let get to it!

In this example we are running a Primary site (Configuration Manager 2012 SP2) on a Windows Server 2012 R2 OS with SQL Server 2014 hosting the Configuration Manager database on the same box. In below steps we are

• Upgrading Base OS windows Server 2012 R2 to Windows Server 2016
• Upgrading SQL Server 2014 R2 to SQL server 2016
• Upgrading Configuration Manager 2012 SP2 to Configuration Manager 1702

Base OS Upgrade

If you plan to upgrade the base OS of the Configuration Manager primary site server, and upgrade SQL then follow these steps:

Take a backup of your existing primary site database, SMS backup, Source directory, SCCMContentLib (All the folders for SCCMContentlib). See  https://technet.microsoft.com/en-in/library/gg712697.aspx#BKMK_SupplementalBackup

1. Rename your current Configuration Manager primary site server and create a new machine with Windows server 2016 installed.
2. It should have same name, drive letters and drive structure as your earlier site server.
3. Install all the pre-requisites for Configuration Manager. See Site and site system prerequisites for System Center Configuration Manager.

SQL upgrade

Please refer to this article for SQL upgrade:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sccm/core/plan-design/configs/support-for-sql-server-versions#upgrade-options-for-sql-server

As we are running SQL on primary site server locally, we need to install the upgraded version of SQL on this newly created server.

1. In our previous server we were running SQL server 2014 (Microsoft SQL server 2014 (SP2-CU2)- 12.0.5522.0 (X64))

2. On new Primary site server, we installed Microsoft SQL server 2016 Ent version (Microsoft SQL Server 2016 SP1 -13.0.4001.0 (X64))

3. Copied the smsbackup locally on the new server.

4. Copy CM_<Sitecode>.mdf and CM_<SiteCode>_log.ldf files from smsbackup location to the location on the new server exactly where it was stored in your old Primary (SQL) server. For example, if .mdf and .ldf files on your old server are stored in <G:MSSQL11Data> then it has to be stored in the same location on the new server.

SMSBackup Location:

Copy to below location (As per the previous server database files location):

5. Now attach the database on the New server (SQL) and then run site recovery.

Click on Add and provide the location for .mdf and .ldf files copied from the backup and click ok.

With this we should see the Primary Site Database visible under Databases in SQL Server Management Studio.

Now we can start the site recovery Process

Primary Site Recovery

6. Run the Configuration Manager setup and recover the site using “Manually recovered DB option”.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg712697.aspx#Recover

-Please follow below link for the Recovery process.

-General:   System Center 2012 Configuration Manager R2 – Disaster Recovery for Entire Hierarchy and Standalone Primary Site recovery scenarios     http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=44295

-After waiting for couple of hours, we can start the Upgrade process for Configuration Manager 1702.

-Copy the Configuration Manager 1702 Media locally on the Primary site server.

-Also take the current SMSbackup for the primary site.

-The following is a checklist of required and recommended actions to perform prior to upgrading to System Center Configuration Manager:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sccm/core/servers/deploy/install/upgrade-to-configuration-manager#bkmk_checklist

-Make sure that all the Tasks are verified before we go for the Upgrade.

-Also make sure that TestDbUpgrade is successful before we go for the upgrade.

Note: We need to take the backup of current Database and restore to a separate SQL server (Non- production SQL) and run TestDbUpgrade.

Test upgrade should not be run on production database.

-Now we can run the Configuration Manager 1702 media to start the upgrade process.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sccm/core/servers/deploy/install/upgrade-to-configuration-manager#bkmk_upgrade

NOTE– We can implement all the above steps in case we have multiple sites, to upgrade multiple sites, we need to perform the above steps from Top to bottom (First we need to Upgrade CAS then Primary sites)

–Rajat Choubey

Support Engineer, Microsoft