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Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server 2013 upgrade preparations

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Applies To: Dynamics CRM 2013

To prepare the upgrade to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server 2013, follow the guidelines in this section.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server 2011 server roles aren’t compatible with a Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 deployment. Therefore, after you upgrade the first Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server 2011 server, other Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server 2011 servers that are running in the deployment will become disabled. As each server is upgraded, it will be enabled.

Important

We recommend that for each organization that you upgrade, the volume have free space that is at least three times the size of the organization database file and four times the size of the log file. Therefore, if a single organization database and log file are located on the same volume and are one gigabyte in total, you should have at least seven gigabytes of available disk space before you perform the upgrade.

Estimate downtime due to upgrade

This section provides best practices for managing Microsoft Dynamics CRM deployment downtime that will be incurred during an upgrade.

  • Upgrade in a test environment to estimate the duration of downtime and determine issues that may occur as a result of the upgrade. More information: Upgrade the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Deployment

  • Consider a phased approach to upgrade.

    • Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server upgrade only (binary upgrade). To do this, don’t specify an organization during the upgrade.

      Important

      After the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server 2013 upgrade is complete, all Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 organizations are disabled and can’t be enabled until they are upgraded.

    • Upgrade organizations. Use Deployment Manager to individually upgrade organizations.

      Important

      Customers with very large and highly customized organizations should consider deferring the table merge that is part of organization upgrade. More information: Run the base and extension table merge as a separate operation.

Software prerequisites

Before you run the upgrade, we recommend that you install the following components on the computer where you will install Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 or on the computer where Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server 2013 will be migrated to:

  • Windows Identity Foundation Framework

  • Microsoft .NET Framework 4

  • Microsoft SQL Server Native Client

  • Microsoft Application Error Reporting Tool

  • Microsoft URL Rewrite Module for IIS

If these components aren’t present when you run the upgrade, Setup will install them. However, to reduce the upgrade processing time, consider installing these components in advance. These components can be found in the redist folder of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM installation media.