You can go pure IPX if you want, and you can do everything you can do right now on 4.11, you just do it a little different for some things (like licenses). The only thing you really lose is the kewl new stuff Novell is doing with their NOS, and it can be a pain to add it on afterwards. I had a problem with Port Resolver messing up the installs of all of my web services for one of my migrations that I chose just IPX (so you're better off just installing IP).
Done a few of these migrations, it will be a pain any way you go. Across the wire, going fresh will take the same amount of time. Build your 6.0 server using the SP2 overlay CD, don't use shipping media.
Across the wire:
Follow the directions in the documentation for prepping your 4.11 server and ther rest of the network. The only step they didn't give you that seems to be the key to get a migration from 4.11 to go with out screwing everything up when you go stright to 6.0 is to import the schema from the 6.0 tree into the 4.11 tree. Now when you do this, the NDS migration will go okay and not screw everything up because of a lack of the NICI and certificate authority stuff. Make sure your 4.11 tree is in wonderful health before you do this, because any DSREPAIRs run on the 4.11 afterwards will be filled with errors because of the schema extensions it doesn't understand. When all is said and done, your tree will work.
Matt's suggestion:
So you don't end up shooting your self in the foot, don't recreate the wheel just to migrate your server. Just prep the 4.11 server for NDS 8.6.2 by installing th latest SP and DS version and install the PRENDS8 files. Install your 6.0 server into you 4.11 tree, give the 6.0 server a R/W copy of the replica, then make it the master. Backup your data to tape then restore the data so you can retain trustee assignments / backup trustees using TBACKUP copy data using any method you choose, the restore trustees with the BAT file TBACKUP created for you / use Consolodation Wizard to move files from one server to the other (retaining trustee assignments). The just uninstall NDS from the 4.11 server, clean up the objects on your tree, recreate queues and you're in business.
Novell Consultings method:
If the hardware can handle it, do an inplace upgrade to 5.1 to make sure your NDS migrates safe, go to NDS 7 when installing 5.1 then upgrade to NDS 8.0 then upgrade to NDS 85.27 (install 5.1 using the SP5 overlay CD) Then do an across the wire migration to 6.0 (nds 8.6.2) and your in business. This method may seem a little over worked, but it IS the safest and easiest on NDS (which is just the little thing the entire Novell network depends on). I just used this method for a 4 server, 300 node network. Had only 36 hours to finnish all 4 server and get mission critical servers backup and running on NW6 (it was for a bank). The migration had zero problems and after a month of operation, they still have zero problems and all services function correctly, even print queues.
The key on the print queues is to turn off the print server device while the migration is going. And if you can, just isolate the source and destination server with whatever workstation you are using (if it's more than a single server enviroment, then you will need to keep all server in communication while the migration goes). Brent Schmidt CNE, Network +
Senior Network Engineer
provogeek@hotmail.com
East Bay, California; USA
