SBS 2008 Failure - How much of a problem?
We have an SBS Server 2008, Server 2012 R2 Physical (DC) and Server 2012 R2 Virtual (DC) in my environment. I recently converted the SBS server to a virtual machine in order to reuse the hardware. The conversion was successful. I then pulled a full backup of the SBS as a VM BUT I forgot to change the Symantec/Veritas Agent to the virtual machine agent. Now 4 days later (and at least 3 reboots) the SBS VM won't boot. It BSoD in Normal, Safe or Last Known Good modes. Thankfully because I am working on decommissioning the SBS most operations are no longer running on it. I attempted to build another SBS 2008 VM and restore the BE backup but it continues to fail because I cannot name the new SBS machine the same Name/Domain combo, and Backup Exec saying the restore resource cannot be found. So, the real question is: do I really need to worry about bringing the SBS server back online, only to decommission it? Exchange is already Office365, I have another physical DC (now running on the original SBS hardware), my certificate infrastructure was rebuilt using another server and I'll get over not having the SharePoint data (wasn't mission critical). Can I move the forest/domain operations masters with it offline and what other steps am I overlooking? Thank you in advance!
I think, that if your server is dead, well, it's dead you should just remove it from the AD.
Seize the roles and remove it and finally check that there's no reference to it in DNS and AD sites and services
Seize the roles and remove it and finally check that there's no reference to it in DNS and AD sites and services
Even if you are office 365, if you did not uninstall exchange then there are lingering AD exchange objects and properties that really mess with outlook clients and AAD syncing on a local LAN. So if you didn't uninstall exchange, that might be the motivating factor to restore and uninstall. MS has no official process to manually clean up exchange without the uninstaller.
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Radhakrishnan R: Yes SBS was still holding all FSMO roles. The other two listed servers are Domain controllers, one of which is on the same hardware that SBS was on. I like your processes but how do I decommission a dead server?
Cliff Galiher: I didn't get to fully uninstall Exchange from the SBS, but I did already get the network to operate without it. I got rid of the SBS autodiscover records and recreated them for Office365. My Outlook clients configure automatically quite well. Should I bring up another Exchange server in it's place just to uninstall it if I can't get SBS back online?
Cliff Galiher: I didn't get to fully uninstall Exchange from the SBS, but I did already get the network to operate without it. I got rid of the SBS autodiscover records and recreated them for Office365. My Outlook clients configure automatically quite well. Should I bring up another Exchange server in it's place just to uninstall it if I can't get SBS back online?
I like your processes but how do I decommission a dead server? - Simple than expected. Sieze the role (this doesn't need that server to be online). Metadata cleanup ,manually clear out old DNS entries, Wipe out SBS with fresh OS.
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Radhakrishnan R: Thank you for your continued assistance. Could you explain the Metadata cleanup a little more? Does that mean go into ADSIedit and find all SBS entries and delete?
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Was the old SBS holding all the fsmo roles ? Server 2012 R2 Physical (DC) and Server 2012 R2 Virtual (DC) is additional DC's in the network?. If the old SBS doesn't hold any other roles apart from fsmo, then the best option would be
1) Seize the FSMO to 2012 R2 DC
2) Metadata cleanup, remove all corresponding DNS entries
3) De-commissioning the old SBS
4) If you are planning to re-use the hardware then install fresh OS, give new name and add it to the network.