SQL Server 2016 Pre Upgrade Checklist and Unsupported Scenarios

SQL Server 2016 introduced a large number of enhancements and feature releases, which have prompted corporations to envision for an upgrade. For a successful upgrade and migration path to SQL Server 2016, you need to ensure that you have followed all the SQL server 2016 pre upgrade checklist and unsupported scenarios.

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Firstly, you need to ensure that your edition of SQL Server is eligible for a direct upgrade path to SQL Server 2016. You can upgrade to SQL Server 2016 from the following versions:

SQL Server 2008
SQL Server 2008 R2
SQL Server 2012
SQL Server 2014

Search for your SQL Server Edition to see if you have a direct upgrade path:

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Before moving to SQL Server 2016, ensure that all the features that you are using are supported in the current release. Search the below table to find out.

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Current Limitations and Unsupported Scenarios

All the SQL Server components must have the same version numbers. You cannot use different build numbers for Reporting, Analysis, Integration or Database Services. They all need to have the same version numbers.
Upgrade from 32 Bit to 64 Bit in-place upgrade is not supported. You need to do a side by side upgrade to a 64 Bit instance since both backup-restore or detach-attach is fully supported.
Cannot add additional feature during the in-place upgrade process. Newer functions can only be added after the upgrade is complete.
32-bit Fail-over clusters are not supported for a direct upgrade to SQL 2016.
Evaluation versions need to be upgraded to a licensed edition before upgrading to SQL Server 2016.
Evaluation editions cannot be upgraded to a clustered installation. Only standalone editions are supported.
64 Bit Editions of earlier versions can just be updated to a 64 bit SQL Server 2016 Edition.
SQL Server 2005 can only be restored with compatibility level 100 and above.
Changing of Editions of SQL Clusters in 2016 is not supported.

I hope this gives you enough information to get you started with SQL Server 2016. Follow the Official documentation from Microsoft as provided below:

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