Greetings Spicy People
I am planning to do a hardware and OS refresh on my 2 AD domain controllers and I would like your opinions on how proper my planning is. I currently have 2 physical servers that are 6 years old running Win2003R2 32bit. The 2 machines don't do anything except act as domain controllers. There are no other applications onboard the DC's and no user file shares or shared printers either. I do have the BackupExec2010 agent installed so that the 2 servers can be backed up to tape each night (full backups).
Step 1
Is to purchase 2 new physical servers and 2 OS licenses plus device CAL's
Step 2
Rack the servers and do all the power wiring and network cabling
Step 3
BackupExec is not compatible with WinServer2012 yet and I do want to continue having good backups of my DC's so I plan to install WinServer2008R2 initially and then do an in place upgrade to 2012 when BE becomes compatible. Is that actually possible? Maybe the better question is, is that wise and safe?
Step 4
I want to also continue using the same host names and IP addresses of the existing DC's. I plan to demote and then power off the DC that does not hold any FSMO roles. I then use its host name and IP on the first new server and make it a domain controller.
Step 5
Transfer FSMO roles from the remaining WinServer2003R2 DC to the new WinServer2008R2 DC
Step 6
Demote and power off remaining WinServer2003R2 DC and then use its host name and IP for the second 2008R2 DC
Questions
Can I actually do an in place upgrade from WinServer2008R2 64bit to WinServer2012 64bit if it is a DC?
Are there any guides from Microsoft available because I am certainly not the first to do an upgrade like this?
Is it still recommended to disable all but 1 network interface on a domain controller so that the DNS binds to the correct IP?
In regards to Device CAL's - is that the correct CAL to purchase? I did purchase device CALs back in 2007 and we have never had any desktop, laptop, printer, server have any difficulty getting connected to AD.
If some disaster occurs can I revert and restore from the latest tape backup, back onto the old hardware AFTER I have demoted the old DC's?
The 2 existing 2003R2 domain controllers also have AD authorized DHCP servers running on each. Is there a recommended tool or process that saves the DHCP config which can then be imported into the 2008R2 DHCP server service? If not I will just have to write down the scope settings and then recreate manually. I know that since DNS is integrated into AD, I don't have to do anything manually because dcpromo does that for me on 2008R2
Thank you in advance for all of your comments, advice and opinions.