Migration to 2008

[ginger9991]

Hey guys,
Its not a schools network but a few airports! im looking to upgrate to Server 2008 from 2003.its 3 sites and two dcs per site. Any recommendations how i should do this? Can i upgrade my second DC to 2008 and start upgrading my clients knowing that the permissions will be fine? or will i have to do all the servers in one bash? Any help will be much appreciated!

[bio]

Did you check if your hardware supports windows 2008 r2 ?
Would be wiser to upgrade to R2 right away

bio..

[SYNACK]

As long as you update the AD Schema to the latest level with ADPREP before you install and promote your Windows 2008 box you should have no trouble running them side by side while you get everything up to speed.

I would upgrade the Schema then migrate all roles to one DC then demote the other and perform a clean install of Server onto it, join it back to the domain and promote it to a DC. Then trasfer all the rolles to the 2008 server and do the same to the other 2003 server. This will leave you with the freshest fastest system and depending on what services you have installed can be done with no downtime to clients.

You will need to reinstall 3rd party apps and stuff but this will probably give you the best result.

I agree with bio though that unless you have a specific reason for going with 2008 it would be a good move to go right to 2008r2 if your hardware supports it as it will save you another upgrade in future.