Today I am going to share with you what I think is important to think about when upgrading to SQL Server 2005. I have done many successful upgrades from SQL Server 2000 and I have put together a checklist of things to consider when doing your implementation. The items in the checklist are in the order that you would perform them in. The items in this checklist are:

1. Prepare a series of checks and balances that need to be performed before, during and after the upgrade.
2. Run DBCC CHECKDB on all databases to ensure database consistency.
3. Back up all SQL Server databases\files.
4. Reserve enough disk space so that components, system and user databases and any database files that need to be upgraded. The estimate is to allow between 2 to 4 times the amount of disk space to allow for the upgrade.
5. Ensure that all database servers have login information before upgrading the databases
6. Disable all startup stored procedures.
7. Stop replication
8. Quit all applications
— UPGRADE YOUR SERVER
1. Register your servers after the upgrade
2. Repopulate full-text catlogs
3. Update statistics
4. Update usage
5. Configure new SQL Server installation
6. Backup new databases

After you have your server up and running perform your tests to validate that users\application can connect, queries can be run, etc. and sign off on your test cases.

I hope this helps and if I have left anything out please let us know!