Migrate a System Center Orchestrator database to a different SQL Server

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

We were running through our list of servers and looking at what each one was doing in terms of Domain Controllers, Exchange servers, SQL servers, System Center servers etc when we noticed that we had quite a few servers that were using pretty small databases but had a large amount of host resource allocated to it. We also noticed that we had a large amount of 2008 R2 servers that we wanted rid of. We had a few server 2016 virtual machines available to us that already had SQL Server 2016 installed on them and plenty of room to migrate some databases on to them.

So one of the smaller databases we had on a Server 2008 R2 virtual machine was our System Center Orchestrator (SCORCH) database. We could live with this being down in working hours so we thought that we would hit this one first, allowing us to then completely discommission the old Server 2008 R2 server.

I have installed System Center products more times than I can remember and can probably do it with my eyes closed, but I had never migrated a SCORCH database before. So, like all good techies, I headed to Google hoping that someone had written a nice simple easy to follow guide. After trying a few out there, it looked like there wasn’t any simple, easy to follow guides and I had probably balls up our SCORCH database.

But I then came across a guide which I read all the way through first and seemed pretty simple, easy to follow and at this point, I was desperate so I went straight into it and gave it a go.

It worked! I was chuffed to bits, but mostly relived! The guide was spot on and every step was perfectly written and simple to follow. So here it is:

How to Migrate an Orchestrator Database

I would like to express my thanks for saving my evening on that one – strangely enough I’ve not migrated any System Center databases since! But I would be confident with using this guide for SCORCH again if I had to.