I am looking for some information, advice and direction regarding upgrading from 8.5.3 to 9.0.1.  I had posted regarding virtualization on the 8.5.3 forum in August (http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/nd85forum.nsf/ShowMyTopicsAllThreadedweb/04491da5034769ff85257bd000586a6d?OpenDocument)

Presently, at Head Office, we have two mail and application servers, one Sametime server, one server in our DMZ that serves as our webmail and Traveler server, and an older BES server.  We also have six mail and application servers at remote locations.  All servers are 32-bit  Windows 2003 R2, and except for the BES server, are all Domino 8.5.3FP3.  The Traveler server has UP2 installed as well.  The Sametime version is 8.5.2IF1 and Traveler version is 8.5.3.2.   The BES server (don't laugh)  is still on Domino 6.5.6FP1 and the BES version is 4.0.7 (Build 19).  I haven't upgraded BES because a) it was working fine, and b) I knew once we moved to Traveler 90% of our BB users would take the opportunity to move to Apple or Android devices.  We now have 9 users on the BES   We have no BB10 users, and the devices range from OS 5.0.0.734 to 7.1.0.755. 

They want to virtualize all Domino servers at Head Office.  We won't be doing a P2V conversion.  They want to do clean installations of the OS and software for all Domino servers.  And all servers will be 64-bit.  I know to move to Domino 9.x we need the OS to Windows 2008 or better.  So we will be using 64-bit Windows 2008 Standard OS.  I don't want to touch the BES because it's working as is.  And I really don't want to upgrade the BES to a new version just for 9 users. 

I've been reading this forum and I've got a few questions regarding a) the upgrade process and b) virtualizing.

1.  Can I upgrade a server in the same manner as if I'm moving it to new hardware?  In the past, I've upgraded the OS, installed the newer version of Domino and brought the server up as a  "dummy server".  I then replicated over the necessary databases from the "old" server.  When ready to make the swap, I then copied over the server ID and edited the Notes.ini.  This worked well two years ago when we moved all of our servers to new hardware.  At that time I upgraded the OS from Windows 2000 to Windows 2003 R2 and went from ND7.0.3 to ND8.5.2.  One issue we did run into was for users who had that server as their home server, they said that older mail that had previously been deleted was reappearing as unread messages.  This time I might restore the dbs from a backup when the time comes.  Will this method work for ND9.x? 

2.  In reading this forum over the last couple of days, I noticed that there was some mention of SSL and Traveler 9.  We aren't presently using SSL on our Traveler server.  Is this a requirement with Traveler 9?  Is a self-signed SSL certificate acceptable or will we need to look at something from Verisign?

3.  If I understand correctly, in order for a Blackberry device to work with Traveler it needs to be BB10.  Is that correct?   And if so, do I also require a BES server or is the point that it would now be eliminated?   I know one user on OS 6.x plans to move off BB, the other using OS 5.x probably doesn't care since he's still using a BB8530.  However the other seven are not eligible to upgrade as yet and cannot be upgraded to BB10.  I saw that there is no more BES Express, so I would still need to maintain my old BES server for these 9 devices since they cannot be upgraded to BB10 or move to BES 10.

4.  We just use the Community Server for Sametime.  All we want is the classic meeting server (like in ST7.x) to allow our users to chat, schedule/attend a meeting, and occasionally allow our Helpdesk to connect to a user's desktop to remotely manage it (ie. share screen).  I saw there is the Community Server download available which I would guess is the same as what we used to got to ST8.5.2.  Would the steps be virtually the same to move the Sametime server over to new hardware as I describe in the third and fourth paragraphs of this post? (http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/stforum.nsf/d6091795dfaa5b1185256a7a0048a2d0/b12b65c9459d2b7a852579d000574dcf?OpenDocument).

5.  And finally, virtualizing Domino  I really don't know what is involved.  I've been asked about resources needed, space etc.  We don't use transactional logging or DAOS at this time.  Any reply I had received previously indicated that those who had virtualized their servers had essentially matched their physical hardware on the virtual server (ie, cpu, ram, drive space)..  However, we're moving to a 64-bit environment.  Should I be looking at more RAM?   I've also read that we shouldn't put too many Domino servers on the same host.  What I've found out is that basically Domino performs very well when virtualized.  My manager wanted to know if he needed more cpu cycles or memory allocated to the VM. And I believe he is looking to put the data on a SAN, but I'm not sure. I kind of want to do all of this all at once in that we upgrade the OS and Domino as we virtualize, but it may be better to just virtualize the current config, but just upgrade the OS.  I assume moving the a 64 bit version We haven't moved to ND9 yet, and perhaps it would be better to first virtualize at ND8.5.3 and then upgrade?  We currently have about 130GB in databases, so I had thought perhaps a 20-30% growth rate to calculate drive space?

 

Sorry for the long post. And I hope I've asked the right questions.

Thanks,
Pam