SQL Server 2008 Upgrade Lab at Microsoft
I got an invite to take part in a lab at the Microsoft Technology Center in Waltham. I took advantage of it. I'll use this post to describe the experience so that anyone else with the opportunity will know what to expect. [caption id="attachment_333" align="alignnone" width="450" caption="They knew I was coming"] [/caption] First, you recieve a very explicit set of pre-requisites. You need to install the SQL Server Upgrade Assistant, a tool that Microsoft licensed Scalability Experts to create for them. You have to run this against a small database, >25gb. The tool backups up all the databases from the server (so you need to put it on to a test box, rather than try to move an entire production system worth of databases). It then starts a trace that captures all the…