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We have a Win2003 file server that is the heart of the org. Lots of UNC paths point to it. Drive letter mappings need to stay stable.

How can we abstract the UNC path, in such a way that we can move to a Win2012 server and preserve the UNC paths?

(Ideally, printer UNC references would also be preserved, but we could live with this changing/breaking)

Jonesome Reinstate Monica
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2 Answers2

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It will take some transition work, but the first thing you should do is strongly consider using a DFS Namespace for your domain. DFS lets you have a single directory that links off to various file servers and shares underneath. You can easily retarget the links to a new server at any point, and this will be transparent to the user. But if you aren't already using DFS, then this will require making disruptive changes, but once you have made them you should be good for a long time.

The other thing that can help in a migration is to use a DNS alias to redirect the DNS name that used to be belong to the old server to the new server. This does take some work though. See this question.

Community
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Zoredache
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  • If we are not using DFS now, what is the step to get from where we are now (plain win2003 file server) to DFS handling our UNCs ? – Jonesome Reinstate Monica Sep 24 '14 at 22:31
  • Use the windows server migration tools and the process outlined there. It includes setting up DFS for the file server migration – Rex Sep 25 '14 at 14:29
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Assuming you are not looking to do in place upgrades, most of the common roles can be migrated using the Windows Server Migration Tools.

Many roles and features can be migrated by using Windows Server Migration Tools, a set of five Windows PowerShell cmdlets that was introduced in Windows Server 2008 R2 for easily migrating role and feature elements and data. The migration guides support migrations of specified roles and features from one server to another (not in-place upgrades). Unless otherwise noted in the guides, migrations are supported between physical and virtual computers, and between full installation options of Windows Server and servers that are running the Server Core installation option.

There are other ways, of course but the migration tools are a supported method

Rex
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