Changing IP address of SQL Server 2008 R2 I would like to know if there are any dangers or relevant precautions before changing the IP address of a SQL Server 2008 R2 box.

We have built a virtual PC with Windows Server 2008 R2 and SQL Server 2008 R2. The purpose of this machine is run a job that restores a backup file (copied by a different server), manipulates it, backs it up again and then copies it out to other servers. We've run it a few times in our test/dev DMZ and are now considering deployment.

The simplest option would be to re-IP it. The server name would remain intact. My problem is a colleague has suggested this is unsafe (to re-ip a SQL Server). My question is

a) Is this true for the OS and SQL I'm using? (Win 2008 R2 &amp; SQL 2008 R2?)

b) Is it true for any other combinations of OS and/or SQL?

c) Is there anything special we should do in preparation?

My research thus far indicates it will be fine but I trust the folks of DBA StackExchange more than those social MSDN people. 

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/sqlserver/en-US/9844e0c1-b57e-4e0c-88cf-7cb51cc55e07/change-sql-server-ip-address

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1164450-391-1.aspx
Changing the IP Address for a machine running SQL Server is not a problem at all.  You'll need to restart the SQL Server after changing the IP Address so that the SQL Server will start listening on the new IP address.  But that's it.

If no users actually connect to the machine then there's nothing else to do.

If users did connect to the machine they'd need to refresh their DNS cache on their workstations by running "ipconfig /flushdns" or by simply restarting their computers.

Unless you've done something very unusual with the TCP listeners within SQL there's nothing else that needs to be done with SQL Server other than the quick restart.