Update of server and RE

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Has anyone moved from Raisers Edge 7.93.5782 on a MS Server 2003 running SQL 2005 to 7.96.6401 on a MS Server 2012 running SQL 2012?

What issues were incurred?


Our IT guy and local support are stumped? Saying we're at a forced move to hosted (not going to debate that here).


Any insights.


Thanks so much.


 

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  • JoAnn Strommen:
    Has anyone moved from Raisers Edge 7.93.5782 on a MS Server 2003 running SQL 2005 to 7.96.6401 on a MS Server 2012 running SQL 2012?

    What issues were incurred?


    Our IT guy and local support are stumped? Saying we're at a forced move to hosted (not going to debate that here).


    Any insights.


    Thanks so much.


     

    That's a lot of changes to make all at once.  I seem to recall (from long ago) some tweaks/patches that needed to be on the SQL server to allow a direct upgrade of data from SQL 2005, but my memory ain't the greatest. Google is giving lots of results for "sql 2005 to 2012 database migration," but I don't see anything that says it isn't possible.  Going firectly from SQL versions earlier than 2005 isn't possible, but from 2005 it should be.


    Without knowing the exact problems/errors they're having I can't do much research on the issue. 

  • Hi JoAnn,


    I've done it several times for different clients (one in progress as I type). I don't see what the big deal is. I wouldn't say it's a cinch - as John says, there are few tweaks to do in getting the host machine ready but that's normal for an RE installation anyway - but it's not rocket science. A later version of SQL Server doesn't really care about the database version due to compatability settings, etc.


    The complicated bit, I reckon, is that you can either create a new server with the same name on your domain and never have them online at the same time OR you can create the new server with a different name and then have them available simultaneously. Each approach has its pros and cons. But what you can't do - unless you have a segmented domain (if that's the right term for a network with subdomains - I ain't really a network guy) - is create a new server with the same name on the same domain as the old one. That's possibly where your guys are confused.


    Either approach - that is, creating a new server before trashng the old one - means that you have a fall-back as well as a way to compare the new and old servers for functionality, performance, etc.


    But you really should ditch Server 2003/SQL 2005 in any case. Not that I love Windows Server 2012 - I was sad to have to move away from WS and SS 2008/R2, which were both wonderful pieces of kit IMHO. And I still run them in-house. (But then I still use Windows 7, so there that!)


    And the upgrade from RE 7.93 to 7.96 is the same no matter what hardware you're running in terms of the inherent changes in the phones, email addresses, etc. This is really separate to the server upgrade.


    Cheers,

    Steve Cinquegrana | CEO and Principal Developer | Protégé Solutions

     
  • JoAnn Strommen:
    Has anyone moved from Raisers Edge 7.93.5782 on a MS Server 2003 running SQL 2005 to 7.96.6401 on a MS Server 2012 running SQL 2012?

    What issues were incurred?


    Our IT guy and local support are stumped? Saying we're at a forced move to hosted (not going to debate that here).


    Any insights.


    Thanks so much.


     

    Our IS guys had to upgrade both the server and RE last week (we were still running SQL 2002). We did the server upgrade on Monday in off-hours (5am); checked it out for a day or so, and did the RE upgrade on Wednesday morning at 5am. Everything went well,  thankfully. 


    Let me know if your guys want to talk direclt with my guy; I'm sure he'd be willing to talk shop.


    John

  • JoAnn Strommen
    JoAnn Strommen Community All-Star
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    Thank you John H, Steven & John Z. I forwarded your replies to our Y IT guy. He's quite frustrated with our IT support company. Sounds like he is getting error messages about linking to RE on the new server.


    And now I'm getting frustrated as they have had and been working toward this for months. So, now his solution is just go hosted and we won't have to mess with it as "Blackbaud's plan is to move everyone to hosted within 18 months anyway."


    I've asked him to reach out to you for some help. Just hoping he does.
  • JoAnn Strommen:

    Thank you John H, Steven & John Z. I forwarded your replies to our Y IT guy. He's quite frustrated with our IT support company. Sounds like he is getting error messages about linking to RE on the new server.


    And now I'm getting frustrated as they have had and been working toward this for months. So, now his solution is just go hosted and we won't have to mess with it as "Blackbaud's plan is to move everyone to hosted within 18 months anyway."


    I've asked him to reach out to you for some help. Just hoping he does.

    I'm curious about where he is getting "Blackbaud's plan is to move everyone to hosted within 18 months anyway."  I know they are pushing everyone that direction, but I've never seen any official timeline. If that is true then we will have to replace RE within 18 months because we cannot be hosted and still interface with our ticketing system, which is critical to our operations.

     

  • JoAnn Strommen
    JoAnn Strommen Community All-Star
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    Travis, our IT guy, said he spoke to David Anderson from Blackbaud. That person told him they have 14,000 customers and are down to 6000 still self-hosted and expect them to move to hosted in the next 18 months. That is from Travis' notes about their phone conversation. I know I had an email from a David Anderson several months ago saying we had to move to hosted due to the required TL1... whatever the updates are... within the next week of his email. I replied to his email asking why and stating the deadline was in March. He never replied. (Wish I'd kept email -seemed like a big sales pitch.)
  • 6,000 clients all moving to hosted within the next 18 months?? Nah. There are too many out there in John H's position where they have whole infrastructures tacked on to their local back-end, use direct SQL, macros, plug-ins, etc, who will never be able to, or agree to, go hosted. And I've never seen a Blackbaud road-map to this effect.


    Sure, encourage customers to move to hosted or NXT, de-emphasis RE7 support, etc. But that's an entirely different thing.

     
  • JoAnn Strommen:

    Travis, our IT guy, said he spoke to David Anderson from Blackbaud. That person told him they have 14,000 customers and are down to 6000 still self-hosted and expect them to move to hosted in the next 18 months. That is from Travis' notes about their phone conversation. I know I had an email from a David Anderson several months ago saying we had to move to hosted due to the required TL1... whatever the updates are... within the next week of his email. I replied to his email asking why and stating the deadline was in March. He never replied. (Wish I'd kept email -seemed like a big sales pitch.)

    So, more than 40% of their customers are still self-hosted and they think they're going to get them all migrated to BB hosting in 18 months.  Go on, pull my other leg.


    More and more I'm growing disillusioned with how Blackbaud is handling all of this.

  • JoAnn Strommen:

    Travis, our IT guy, said he spoke to David Anderson from Blackbaud. That person told him they have 14,000 customers and are down to 6000 still self-hosted and expect them to move to hosted in the next 18 months. That is from Travis' notes about their phone conversation. I know I had an email from a David Anderson several months ago saying we had to move to hosted due to the required TL1... whatever the updates are... within the next week of his email. I replied to his email asking why and stating the deadline was in March. He never replied. (Wish I'd kept email -seemed like a big sales pitch.)



    Regarding your original question, we upgraded from 7.95 to 7.96 patch 8 two weeks ago, along with BBNC up to 7.1, a new virtual server on Windows 2012 PLUS a new network zone for BBNC, and SQL 2008 to 2012.  We just had our lessons learned meeting this morning.  I'll start by saying the SQL upgrade was very smooth, as was the RE upgrade.  BBNC was more difficult given it was on a physical server in a special network zone.  First lesson:  have at least one set upgrade window per year.  It had been three years since we upgraded.  Second lesson:  do not rely on Blackbaud support to help you through it if you are self-hosted.  Third lesson:  don't do all of this at once if you can help it.  TLS compliance forced our hand.  All of these changes *shouldn't* be done at once but they *can*.  Certain versions of SQL require certain versions of Windows.  If you are on a physical server, upgrading Windows is not a quick option.  I am the IT person, so I can see why your IT folks would want to push you to hosting.  However, I also have experience with hosted RE/BBNC, and I'm not sure that, at least for us, the alternative is any better at this point in time.




    Relating to this specific comment quoted above, I have been trying to get numbers of self-hosted vs. not from our Blackbaud CSM for three months.  Still don't have an answer.  We were adversely impacted by the BBPS/BBMS issues they had after their move to the Sky infrastructure in February (that, by the way they told customers would happen sometime late January, but actually happened on Feb. 11 with no warning), and had interactions with support that led to an apology from the head of support.  Bottom line:  we were being treated as if, since we are self-hosted, they can't help us.  The posture shift was disarming and disappointing, and I called it out.  I know better than to think they'll get everyone to hosting in 18 months, but they could absolutely set an end-of-life date for, say, three years from now.  I did hear from our CSM that they are no longer marketing/selling on-prem RE.  Hosting is the only new option at this moment.


    Happy to chat with anyone offline who has additional questions of us.  It's been an absolutely delightful couple of months.


    Cheers,


    Kerri

  • JoAnn Strommen:
    Has anyone moved from Raisers Edge 7.93.5782 on a MS Server 2003 running SQL 2005 to 7.96.6401 on a MS Server 2012 running SQL 2012?

    What issues were incurred?


    Our IT guy and local support are stumped? Saying we're at a forced move to hosted (not going to debate that here).


    Any insights.


    Thanks so much.


     

    Not sure if you've resolved this yet or not.  We did this exact upgrade last weekend, along with a Financial Edge Patch upgrade from Patch2 to Patch 22 and a PaperSave upgrade from version 4.12 to version 6.  We did it first in a test environment, and then in our production environment.  We installed on a new server, using the same server name and IP address (renamed the original server to OLD and changed it's IP). Detached the databases copied them over and re-attached to the new server.  If you follow the installation instructions, it's pretty straightforward.  We used Article 97537 along with all of the links within that article.     
  • JoAnn Strommen:
    Has anyone moved from Raisers Edge 7.93.5782 on a MS Server 2003 running SQL 2005 to 7.96.6401 on a MS Server 2012 running SQL 2012?

    What issues were incurred?


    Our IT guy and local support are stumped? Saying we're at a forced move to hosted (not going to debate that here).


    Any insights.


    Thanks so much.


     

    JoAnn

    In January we did a sucessful migration (not upgrade) from 7.93 to 7.96 to satisfy the TLS upgrade issue. We were running RE on a server with an old version of Windows server and SQL Server 2008. We decided to update Win Server, SQL server and RE all at onece.


    In December 2017 we built the new server and restored a backup copy of RE to it so that we could find out how long the process would take and also had an opportunity to practice with the phone number conversions and verify that custom reports would work along with our BI processes. We actually did two test migrations before our final live one. This allowed us to test thoroughly while allowing staff to get through the crush of year-end donations under the old, familiar 7.93 environment.


    The only glitch that we have had concerns e-receipts sent from RE but thes have always been a pain and unfortunately Ifind them equally so in our new environment but that is another story.


    Robert

  • JoAnn Strommen
    JoAnn Strommen Community All-Star
    Ancient Membership 2,500 Likes 2500 Comments Photogenic
    Thank you for all the advise and support. The IT and local company were finally able to get it taken care of. Was humorous at times as I told them FE would need to be on new server aslo as they're integrated.  They hadn't fully considered that. So, all is updated, we're still self-hosted, in the midst of our annual campaign so having fun dealing with the changes that came with the upgrade.  Exactly why upgrade was supposed to happen in February. :) 


    So appreciate the support from you fellow users.

     

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