Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Upgrade Advisor

With the release of Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010, I have been seing more and more questions regarding upgrading from earlier versions of Microsoft SQL Server -- for example Microsoft SQL Server 2000 -- to Microsoft SQL Server 2008. The questions usually comes in the form of "we are currently running [some prior version of SQL Server here] and they are ready to move to Microsoft SQL Server 2008. Is there a checklist in place for this upgrade? How does this affect GP?"

To start, the reason you will not find much of a checklist on upgrading Microsoft SQL Server on CustomerSource or PartnerSource is because this topic does not have much to do with the Microsoft Dynamics GP application itself, but rather falls in the domain of the Microsoft SQL Server Team. As such, one of the cool tools available from the SQL Server Team is the SQL Server Upgrade Advisor.

SQL Server Upgrade Advisor is a wizard-based application that helps you prepare for upgrades to SQL Server 2008 or SQL Server 2008 R2. The Upgrade Advisor analyzes installed components from earlier versions of SQL Server, and then generates a report that identifies issues to fix either before or after you upgrade your database server.



Upgrade Advisor analyzes the following SQL Server components:

• Database Engine
• Analysis Services
• Reporting Services
• Integration Services
• Data Transformation Services

While Notification Services appears in the Analysis Wizard, it is not included in Upgrade Advisor scans because it has been removed beginning in SQL Server 2008 R2.


You can find more information about Microsoft SQL Server Upgrade Advisor at the following links:

Using Upgrade Advisor to Prepare for Upgrades @ MSDN
Microsoft SQL Server Upgrade Advisor download page @ MS Download Center
Microsoft SQL Server versions and editions upgrade @ MSDN

Until next post!

MG.-
Mariano Gomez, MIS, MCP, PMP, MVP
Maximum Global Business, LLC
http://www.maximumglobalbusiness.com/