Hello aviviano,
Were you hoping to retain all existing policies and groups? I know it may sound easier to do so, but I think it would be simpler "start over", so to speak, when making this move. Starting over has the added benefit that you leave behind all the cruft from your old installation of SEP 11.x and start afresh. (I would avoid upgrading my SEPM between major versions for the same reason I avoid upgrding my OS between major versions. Sure it works. Sure it's supported. But things never seem to work quite as well as a fresh install.)
It would be my preference to install the 12.1 Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager (SEPM) on the new server and slowly deploy to clients at my convenience.
General order of operations (Preferred):
- Install the 12.1 Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager (SEPM) on the new 2008 R2 server
- Create an installation package which will overwrite the old SEP client's old communication settings (Solution 1 in the following document http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH92556)
- Deploy the installation package at your convenience.
Your only other option would be to do the following.
Alternative solution (Not preferred):
- Upgrade the existing 11.x SEPM to 12.1 (Backup everything first using these disaster recovery steps: http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH102333)
- Install the 12.1 SEPM on the new 2008 R2 server as a replication partner
- Replicate
- Create a new management server list on the old SEPM. The new management server list should have two priority levels. The first priority level will have the IP and hostname of the new 12.1 SEPM. The second priority level will have the IP and hostname of the old 12.1 SEPM.
- Assign the new management server list to all groups in the SEPM.
- Wait enough time for all clients to pick up this change. (Clients which do not pick up this change will never connect to the new SEPM.)
- Stop the services on the old SEPM.
- If all goes successfully, clients will connect to the new SEPM.
- If all works well, decomission the old SEPM.
Hope this helps.
James