Question About Reinstalling Windows on Physical Proxy Server

[gpomanti]

I have a question about reinstalling windows on a physical proxy server. We use two physical HP Proliant DL360 servers for our Veeam proxies. They were originally set up with Windows 2012 R2. The plan is to install Windows 2016 in order to take advantage of ReFS. I installed 2016 on one of the proxy servers and it caused a lot of issues that I had to fix with support. They had to remove a lot of database records that referred to the old version of the proxy. We think it was because it was the same physical hardware, but a different server name. So for the second proxy, I'd like to do it a little cleaner. Is there a better way to reinstall windows? I'd like to use a new server name but it's not important. This proxy also is the tape drive server. Any help would be appreciated!

[Vitaliy S.]

Hi Greg,

The better way would be to do in-place upgrade or just remove and then add the proxy role back, once you do a complete re-install.

Thanks!

[gpomanti]

We try to avoid in place upgrades, especially on physical servers. My biggest concern is the tape library. If I plan on doing a complete re-install, are there any steps I need to take to ensure that the tape library will still work?

[Vitaliy S.]

In this case you will need to add a brand new server to the backup console, install the tape server role, configure the tape library and then run all the rescan procedures, inventory tasks to detect all connected tapes.

[gpomanti]

Ok thanks, that seems simple enough! Now if I could just remove this server from the managed servers section without it yelling at me that it is being used for tape jobs that haven't existed for a long time...

[Vitaliy S.]

Maybe there are some records in the database saying that this server is still used. If you don't see these jobs in UI, then our support team should be able to clean this up for you.

[gpomanti]

I have a support case open to do just that! Thanks for the suggestions!

[Vitaliy S.]

You're welcome. Let us know how your case is handled.