O365 Admin

Ocean West, I have confirmed that we are fully current in our Server licenses and our FileMaker Pro user licenses (which we actually have too many of based on dropping usage) and are eligible to upgrade to the current version. That is an excellent point about the file names and a possible conflict, since each environment is isolated there may by some duplication there. Thanks for your helpful tips. What would be a good resource either on this forum or somewhere else for walking someone through the steps of a server upgrade to FileMaker 18 or 19? Also, is there is recommended book or online resource (besides the product documentation) for a person who needs to learn FileMaker server administration?

I am an IT professional who has no experience supporting FileMaker, so I could use some sound advice. I have been tasked with taking on the following situation: We currently have FileMaker Server 12 installed on two different servers with user databases from different departments on each. One is Windows Server 2012 (which is fine for now), and the other is Windows Server 2008 which is of course out of support from Microsoft. I realize a best case scenario would be to do an upgrade to the latest version of FileMaker for both, but that would be a more complex effort that would also involve upgrading the FileMaker desktop clients (which we have on both PCs and Macs). In the interests of being able to retire the Windows 2008 box as soon as possible, would it be feasible for us to increase the storage on the 2012 server to the appropriate level and then migrate all the databases over to that server? If that approach could work then what would be the high-level steps, and what involvement and impact would there be to the user community in such a migration? I am starting from square zero, knowing nothing about FileMaker so apologies if this idea is not possible or advisable!