Downgrading from SQL Server Enterprise to SQL Server Standard
Recently I was presented with a situation where one of our CRM clients that we had help upgrade from CRM 2011 to CRM 2016 came to the realization that their 90 day trial of SQL Enterprise that they had used was coming to the end and it was time to buy a license.
Uh Oh! Have you ever looked at the price of Enterprise vs Standard? It is a huge difference. You better be a Fortune 500 company before you make the call to use Enterprise.
So what to do? Backup the CRM database, uninstall Enterprise, install Standard then restore the CRM backup. Hold on, not so quick as that is a long way from working. Read on if you want to know how to get it done.
First off you need to run some scripts to remove the partitioning created to support the AuditBase table. Partitioning is an Enterprise feature it isn’t supported in Standard. If you search for these scripts online you will find several blog postings with the scripts. DON’T USE THEM! The only place you should reference for these scripts are the ones provided by Microsoft in KB2567984 (thank you Gage Pennisi!)
Read through the KB article and then follow these steps:
- Backup myorg_mscrm
- Rename to myorg_mscrm to myorgSTD_mscrm
- Restore to SQL Server
- Run the scripts from the KB against myorgSTD_mscrm. That way if something goes wrong your production system won’t be impacted.
- Backup myorgSTD_mscrm
- If you have an reports developed outside of CRM and published to Reporting Services backup those RDL files now.
- Uninstall SQL Enterprise, including Reporting Services
- Install SQL Standard with Reporting Services
- Configure Reporting Services
- Restore the RDL files from Step 6
- Uninstall CRM Reporting Extensions
- Reinstall CRM Reporting Extensions
- Restore myorgSTD_mscrm as myorg_mscrm
- Import Org via the Deployment Manager
- Run through ADFS and IFD Setup Wizard in the Deployment Manager
- Test your CRM system using the new database version.
Put on your happy face 🙂