SCCM 2007 to 2012 Migration - What have I gotten into!?!

[Zoriphus]

Hey Everyone!

 

Just wanted to introduce myself as the next guy on the boards who will be performing a SCCM 2007 to 2012 migration without a clue as to what I'm doing!

 

Well, let me take that back, I am very familiar with building packages (and a little OSD), but not all of the other aspects of SCCM, especially SCCM's inner workings and troubleshooting. And since building packages apparently makes me the most knowledgeable SCCM guy here, that is how I get the project.

 

Now, all of this isn't a problem, it's just that it is exciting (to learn something new) and terrifying (OMG SCCM is complex!) all at the same time.

 

I just ordered the following books and will hopefully have them next week.

 

Mastering System Center 2012 Configuration Manager

http://www.amazon.co...duct/1118128982

 

System Center 2012 Configuration Manager (SCCM) Unleashed

http://www.amazon.co...duct/0672334372

 

And of course, my boss wants me to get started quicker than that. With that said, I have plenty of time to finish the project (EOY 2013), so I think that he just wants to tell management that the project is underway.

 

So, until I get the books and can start reading all 2200+ pages of them, I had a couple of questions.

• As a general approach to the project, I was thinking of not using any of the migration tools. My initial thought was to stand up SCCM 2012 and then manually replicate all of the functionality. That way, hopefully I'll have a good understanding of how the system works as a whole, instead of just following the guides/books. Does that make sense, or am I out of my mind? (~750 Clients, ~35 remote sites connected via T1's, 40 or 50 packages, 1 OS image; so not a huge setup.)
  
• As long as no boundaries are specified in SCCM 2012, then there is no harm in standing up SCCM 2012 in parallel with SCCM 2007, correct?
  
• Any "gotcha!" moments that others had while working their SCCM 2012 projects? Especially stuff that was not in the books...
  
• Other than the books, Technet, and this site; any other sites, books, etc. that I should be looking at?
  
• Anyone have any good project plans for a SCCM 2012 implementation? If not, I should probably dust off that copy of MS Project that I hardly ever use and set up a project. Maybe even post the .mpp someday...!
  
• Right now, there is ZERO documentation for our current SCCM 2007 setup. I mean documentation as to why the packages are put together the way they are, what software is included in our base image, etc. I tried googling it, but I don' think that I was searching for the right term, because all I could find was this site and the Technet documentation. I'm talking about the stuff that you would put into your internal IT Wiki for the help desk and other administrators to take a look at. Anyone have any links to any good examples?
  

Alright, I think that's enough for a while. I'm just eager to get started and didn't want to wait for my books!

 

If you have any questions or needed more detail, just let me know.

 

Thanks!

 

* Edited for spelling...

Edited October 5, 2012 by Zoriphus

[redbaret82]

Hi Zorphius, I think you got the subject of the topic just correct. What have I gotten into... :-). I am currently completing a SCCM 2007 to 2012 migration and had a lot of questions when I started. I saw you having some similar questions and had to reply, because I know the mountain you are looking up to. In the last 2 months I have had major headaches fixing some of the issues relating to SCCM 2012 and especially databases and installation and I can tell you that there is a lot not in the books or even on technet. Anyways, I try to anwser your questions as good as I can:

1. I definately would not use the migration tools. What could really come in handy is the collection migration. I have used that and saved a lot of time. I was also looking at migrating the packages, but I all the paths will change so you have to edit them all anyway. I choose to recreate them in the new environment and in the mean time clean op any unneeded packages that we had. A consultant that I spoke on the SCCM 2012 course also told me that he had a lot of issues with the migration tools and had done 1 migration with them and got so many issues that he did the rest of his migrations manually without them. Advice that I took for granted.

2. No, you can do the AD forest discovery and set up your boundaries. You could even discovery your devices. Just make sure that the automatic client installation is not enabled!!! ADministration -> Sites -> Client installation settings in the ribbon -> enable auto site wide lcient push installation. That would really mess up your environment. Just install them manually. The sccm 2012 client seemed to uninstall the old sccm 2007 client automatically, so that is handy with migration. Although I did not yet test that thoroughly. Also, do not forget to not enable pxe on your distribution points.

3. Gotcha moments. Oh yeah! SQL server with several instances and reporting services... A lot of issues here with ports, security rights, default instance etc.... If you run into any, maybe I can help. I for example made the stupid mistake to try to install the reporting role on the primary site server that did not have the database site server role installed. De DB was of course on the SQL server but SCCM setup just lets you totally complete the setup of the reporting role on a server that does not have the DB site server role installed instead of giving an error message that it must be installed on a server with the DB site server role.... Also some people suggested that reporting services database could only be installed on the default instance. They were wrong :-)

4. Not specifically other than browsing the internet and combine all the information there is to find. That was really the hardest part. I found the information on this site very practical sometimes. http://www.windows-n...manager-guides/

5. No not really. Currenly completing the test environment and I will then setup a migration plan after that. I have written an installation manual of 60 pages or so, but that is company property and am not allowed to share that.

6. Hmm... I know what you are trying to say, but we do not give our helpdesk a lot of rights other then remote control and adding a computer into an AD security group to deploy a package. Maybe some query viewing. What I am going to do is create a helpdesk handbook for sccm 2012 with pictures that describes the most basic tasks. I did not yet find anything on the internet.

 

Hope this helps a bit. You currently already busy on the project?

[Kingen]

Setup 3-4 labs, and you will be able to master the SCCM2012. At first nothing makes sense, but after a while everything does (almost).

 

The windows noob guides, are really easy to follow and will help you setup your first lab in 1-2days.

 

Good luck mate ! : )

[Iroqouiz]

x I chose your way, kind of. I set up my new SCCM 2012 server and made sure that OSD worked like it should, which is the most important thing for us. Our environment isn't big at all (300 users, maybe 450-500 machines, not that many applications/packages). So I started recreating all our old 2007 packages in 2012, fiddled around with the app model, tried different stuff just to learn. I followed the guides on this forum to set things up.

 

x You have to set up boundaries (use IP address ranges) and boundary groups so clients know where to look for content. Just make sure that you don't enable the boundary group for site assignment! That can really mess things up in your current environment. You can trigger all the discovery methods appropriate for your site, but as long as automatic site assignment and automatic client push is not enabled, nothing will happen to your old 2007 clients, don't worry.

 

x I can't begin to tell you how many gotchas I've encountered. It's good that you have a year to set up the new environment. I did it in 5-6 months, and that was enough time for me, as an inexperienced SCCM admin. One gotcha that I can think of now is PXE boot. Make sure that you tick "Deploy this boot image from the PXE service point" on the Data Source tab of your Boot Image properties. Also, let SCCM install WDS for you. Regardless of what any SCCM MVP says, and there are many who think this, PXE can be a bitch to get working if you manually install WDS. I did it two times, and never got PXE to work. A couple of weeks ago I uninstalled WDS and let SCCM install it for me, *boom* started working immediately. Software Updates are another thing that's giving me a terrible headache right now. Haven't figured it out, but be prepared to scratch your head.

 

x Those sites are basically the ones I look at. Google will be your best friend. You should really learn how to read the log files on the server and clients. This will give you error codes which you can then google.

 

x Didn't use anything other than a simple Word document. But I'm not good at planning projects, I just do stuff. I should probably learn.

 

x Don't have any good links for, I'm afraid. My recommendation is that you start building both packages and applications in your SCCM 2012 lab. Just test stuff. This is the only way you will really learn. Set up a lab with virtual machines that you can re-image over and over again. Test the apps/packages on those VMs.

 

When I was happy with my 2012 server (or as happy as I could be, still having issues with some stuff) and felt I had learned to manage it, I started migrating some stuff from the old server. I only chose some packages, stuff that I hadn't felt like building on my own. I didn't need to migrate anything else since I had taken the time to learn and set up my collections, queries etc by myself.

 

After you've migrated whatever packages/collections you want, check the Client Push properties. Add SMSSITECODE=sitecode and SMSMP=server.domain.com. Start to actually migrate the clients. Just do a couple at a time. Wait until the next day and check the clients tab in the Monitoring node in the SCCM 2012 console. Make sure that they're healthy. Wait a bit more just to confirm no user are experiencing any issues. Then you can start to migrate all the remaining clients. Create a collection with a query for all clients without the SCCM 2012 agent, and one with a query for those who have the agent. This will let you see exactly which clients are not letting you push the agent to. Many MVPs think Client Push is a bad idea. For me, 15 clients out of 450-500 machines would not install the new agent. For those I have to install the client manually or use a log on script, GPO or whatever. Maybe Client Push is not for you.

[Zoriphus]

I'm glad that I revisited this post, because the automatic notifications for post replies are not working properly for me. Will have to go back and check the settings...!

 

Well, I got my books in the mail the other week and have been reading... I think the general idea I've come up with will work. Definitely more complex than I thought it'd be. And what is up with a zillion separate log files in a million different places?!? You'd think that a mature product like ConfigManager would have found an easier way to handle this by now.

 

I have gone through all of the guides as well! What a resource! I dare say better than either of my books.

 

Good idea about the the VM's during the imaging process. They'd image up quickly, too!

 

Also good idea about not enabling client push during testing.

 

I have a lab in a virtual environment on my laptop and our VMWare guy should be done setting up my production server in the next couple of days. I'm sure that I will have many more questions after I get that server set up.

 

Thank you all for the tips and I'll be in touch!

[Junu]

Hi Zoriphus Can you please Share ur .mpp file and issues faced