Side by Side Upgrade Without Migration

[Sanchez]

Hi.

I am the sole SCCM administrator for a small company. The current site is running Config Manager 2012 R2, on a Windows Server 2008 R2 VM. It's a simple hierarchy, consisting of one primary site, all managed from a single server, and 3 distribution points. SQL is hosted on a separate cluster. This was all set up long before I joined the company.

Now that I'm wishing to upgrade to current branch, I've also decided to put it on a new Windows Server 2016 VM. I could do a side-by-side migration, but am quite tempted to start again from scratch, with a clean slate.

My plan is to leave the current site up and running, while I set up the new one, giving me ample time to configure it all, create the deployments, distribute content, etc. Once it's ready, I can push-deploy the new client, and eventually take down the old site.

I've already chosen a new site code and name, and new names for all the servers, so there should be no conflicts there. The only thing I'm a little uncertain about at present, is what's going to happen in the System Management container, when I set up the new site. Will its site code and name be added alongside the current one, or will it over-write? In either casem will the clients get confused (if not current ones, then new builds)? Should I maybe not give the new site server permissions on the container, and instead get it to publish to ADDS when everything's ready?

As a bonus question, I thought I might as well set up the new SQL Server 2016 database for it, on the same cluster as the current one (since we have a cluster already in place, I prefer to use it). I thought I could just install SQL 2016 on the cluster, set up a new instance, and point the new site at that, but are there any potential pitfalls I'm overlooking / anything else I need to consider?

Any guidance would be much appreciated.

Thank you.

[zemerick]

Your container will be fine as long as you use a different site code. We have 2 fully functioning SCCM environments (don't ask) and they work just fine because the site codes are unique between them. 

[Sanchez]

Thanks a lot, that's exactly what I needed to know!

Anyone for the SQL question?