Can I ghost an SQL server?

[otisim]

I have a test environment that we rebuild servers on a regular basis.
To streamline the process we use ghost. We will be installing SQL on
the servers and want to build a ghost image with that build. We have
tested it by doing the build, loading the data, and then stopping all
the services and setting them to manual. After we Ghost the machine,
we start up the services and reset them to Automatic. Seems to work.

My question is:

Are there any risks? Should I expect any adverse affects?

Thanks for all your help!

[Erland Sommarskog]

(ot****@YAHOO.COM) writes:

I have a test environment that we rebuild servers on a regular basis.
To streamline the process we use ghost. We will be installing SQL on
the servers and want to build a ghost image with that build. We have
tested it by doing the build, loading the data, and then stopping all
the services and setting them to manual. After we Ghost the machine,
we start up the services and reset them to Automatic. Seems to work.

My question is:

Are there any risks? Should I expect any adverse affects?

Well, there is one catch. I assume that you rename the machines once
the ghosting as been completed. In this case @@servername is likely
to retain the old name or be NULL. In the latter case, you need to do:

sp_addserver NEWNAME, local

Restart SQL Server after this. If @@servername retains the old name
I would try dropping it with sp_dropserver first, although I don't
know if it works.


--
Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, es****@sommarskog.se

Books Online for SQL Server SP3 at
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/techinf...2000/books.asp

[otisim]

Actually, we are keeping the same name. This is because it is just a
rebuild of the same server.

In other words, we do some testing, we reimage the machine (so we start
with a fresh standard image), and then do more testing.

So we want to keep the same name. We are not using sysprep or making
any other changes. Same hardware, same build, same everything. Just
want to clear out any changes that were made during testing.

Thanks so much for the response.

Steve