Upgrade SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition Cluster to SQL Server 2008 Standard Edition Cluster

Is it possible to do in-place upgrade of SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition Cluster to SQL Server 2008 Standard Edition Cluster? If so, could you provide me the high level steps for it. I really appreciate your assistance. Thanks.
Vas Lakshman

what is the OS of the cluster? if it's windows 2000 then no and you will need to upgrade to windows 2003 and/or buy new hardware depending on how old your hardware is

The existing cluster is on Windows 2003. Would you all agree with these high-level steps on upgrading SQL Server 2000 Enterprise edition cluster to SQL Server 2008 Standard edition cluster.

• Backup the SQL Server 2000 databases
• Remove the 2 nodes from the cluster configuration.
• Uninstall the SQL Server 2000 (ent edition) cluster
• Install SQL Server 2008 (std edition) 2 node cluster
• Restore the databases backed up in step 1

Thanks
Vas Lakshman

is your hardware x64 compatible? i would look into reinstalling the OS with the x64 version as well
if your're not going to upgrade the OS to x64 i would first make sure to detach the databases just to make sure they don't get deleted in addition to the backup. this way you might avoid doing a restore by just attaching the database files.

Thanks for your prompt response.
We are not in a position to upgrade the OS to X64 at this time. That's a good idea to detach the databases. Would you agree that I would have to uninstall SQL Server 2000 (enterprise edition) cluster? There is no way to do an in-place upgrade of the SQL Server cluster to SQL Server 2008, while downgrading the edition from enterprise to standard. Correct?

if you have the hardware then there is no license to buy to go from x86 Windows 2003 to the x64 version. you can even install R2 using the same license. For HP hardware any Proliant server G4 and above is x64 compatible.
not 100% sure, but a quick way to check if you can upgrade is to start the installation and see if you can upgrade. if not it will tell you to create a named instance.