Hello,

First a bit of background. I set up our BES server (working with domino mail) in january 05 and have generally been pleased with it's performance. Lately though it's been a bit flaky. I have to admit I've been a bit slack on the patching/updating of both the Windows OS (2003, NOT sp1), domino server (6.5.1) and BES (4.0.0 hf2). As we only have a small implementation (~20 users), I've been running MSDE SQL locally.

Now I plan to to retire the old server and replace it with a VMware server. The new BES will be running ver 4.1 on Domino 6.5.5 hosted on win2003sp1. At the same time, I'd like to move to MS SQL, hosted on a remote server.

The way I understand it, the best way to achieve this would be to move the sql first, then migrate the BES data to the new box, then shutdown old box and bring up new one.

Does this sound feasible and likely to work?
Should I upgrade the old BES prior to migration, or does it not matter?

If anyone out there has done anything similar it would be great to hear from you about your experiences....Or if anyone has any comments/suggestions on my plans, please reply!

Thanks,

R