Shelby upgrade

Since I have been in my position at CLC, we have outgrown the current server environment. Basically what I inherited was a single 900 MHz processor NT4 server. On that server was our Shelby database and MS Exchange 5.5, as well as all file and print services, and it was the domain controller. I've got over 50 client machines, so needless to say we were long overdue for an upgrade.

We recently upgraded the domain to Windows 2003 Server on 2 new dual-processor Dell servers. One box is now dedicated to MS Exchange 2003, which has been running successfully for a couple months. The other has been patiently waiting for me to move Shelby to it. We finally scheduled for the IT Department and the Finance Director to get together last Wednesday night to make it happen. We kicked out all the users at 3pm (they were notified a week in advance). I had already installed SQL 2000 and Shelby with a blank db on the new server, so the process was pretty straight forward. We made a backup of the db from the NT4 box, then transferred and restored that backup to the new installation. After we verified that was successful, we installed Mailrom. The entire server side of the project went very quickly. Of course, I planned and researched this entire process over and over again, so I was very confident. Plus I performed this migration during Shelby's support business hours, so I knew they were there if I needed them.

On a side note, Shelby's support hours are M-F only - kind of odd for a company who is in business for churches. What happens when we start using their Check In program and we run into a problem at 10am Sunday morning?

The only glitch I ran into was during the installation of Shelby on the new server. It turns out that SQL must be installed using the default instance. When I installed SQL, I named the instance "Shelby" in an attempt to keep things neat & organized (a bad habit I have). However, after a couple minutes of troublshooting w/ a Shelby tech, we discovered the problem. A quick reinstall of SQL with the default instance and we were back in business.

Anyway, the server side of things went smoothly, but the client side was another story. I spoke to several Shelby techs over the last couple weeks, and I got several different stories. One said I had to uninstall and reinstall Shelby on every one of my 55 clients. Another said all I had to do was repoint the user's shortcuts to the new server (I liked that tech's answer much better than the first). Finally a third tech (who said she had "been there 6 years longer than any other tech, so trust me.") assured me that a complete reinstall was necessary.

So the process was: run the uninstaller, uninstall Mailroom if present, reboot, run the installer, install Mailroom if necessary, reboot again, then test. That process, times about 55. It took 2 of us about 4 hours to complete the client upgrades. I was a bit worried, even though everything tested out okay, because I had an offsite seminar the next morning and wouldn't be back until after lunch. I was afraid I'd return to our finance department pulling their hair out and the support staff cursing my name.

I left Andrew in charge, and I had my hand on my cell phone during the entire seminar Thursday morning. Fortunately I never got a call, and almost no one at CLC even noticed our hard work. After all that is my goal, although it can be very unrewarding because no one notices a lot of what I do unless something breaks.

All in all it was a good experience - just very time consuming. I am, however, adding this to my list of things that would be better if we were using a hosted Church Management solution (read Fellowship One) - show up one morning, log on to the website, see the upgraded software and know that I didn't have to do a thing.