busyThe date is the weekend of November 10 to November 12. Yes I know that is 3 days, and that is how long it takes to do this upgrade (provided everything goes according to plan). I will start by kicking everyone out of the system at noon on Friday to start the backup's and migrate the most current data to the backup server. My backups have to be on 3 different media, DDS-4 Tape, DVD, and on the physical disk (want to talk about being just a little paranoid?).
So if you want to know why I am so freaking paranoid about all of this, well its simple. Great Plains / Dynamics is the company. With out it, we don't work. Everything is controled by this software (Payroll, Billing, Dispacting, ect) and I joke that part of my job is to take a bullet for the server. So I protect the data that same way. Plus, if this thing just happens to go belly up in the middle of an install then I have to rebuild (which I have done before).
So right now I have about 200+ pages of stuff to read just to get ready, and then I start working on my test servers. I have two older computers in my office that I use as my test servers. They are not the best computers, but they get the job done. Anyway, I have to start out by putting a fresh install of Windows Server 2003 on, then loading SQL Server 2000 on. Then I have to get a current version of GP 7.5 running, and then migrate our data into that version. This is where I plan on cheating if I can. I am going to ghost the server at that point so I can just restore the ghost image if I fuck anything up. In the long run it will save me lots of time.
Once I get a stable GP 7.5 image with current data on it, thats when the fun starts. Then I get to try and install 9.0 and just wait for it to fuck up, so I can start all over again. LOL. I did this before when I was going to upgrade to GP 8.0, but never did. 8.0 went half way well, but we shall see if 9.0 is the same way. I do really hope it is, as that would be nice and make my life really nice.
Anyway, I got to run to CompUSA now and buy some stuff for the upgrade, then lunch, and then off to starbucks or the like and do lots of reading. O joy.
