Migrating DNS from Server 2003 to Server 2012 R2

In the previous post, we discussed assessing your organization’s DNS infrastructure.

Migrating Active Directory integrated DNS zones is straightforward. You add a domain controller running Server 2012 R2. You configure it as a DNS server. You ensure that the zone replicates to the new domain controller. If you have configured a zone to replicate to a custom partition, this will involve you creating the custom partition on the domain controller. Once all the Active Directory integrated DNS zones are present on your 2012 R2 domain controllers, you can start to decommission the DNS servers that used to host the zones.

If you are migrating standard primary zones, the trick is to create a secondary zone on the DNS server to which you are migrating, configure replication from the primary to the secondary, and then convert the newly replicated secondary so that it becomes a primary zone. You can change the zone type using the DNS Manager console, or by using the dnscmd.exe command line utility. After you change the new secondary zone to a primary, you’ll either have to go back and change the original primary to a secondary, or decommission that DNS server.

In the next article, we’ll discuss decommissioning DNS servers