I have been forced to abandoned my in-place upgrade for a server running windows 2008 r2 to windows 2012 r2 because it just won't upgrade for me. Thus, I am standing up a new VM server with Windows 2012 R2 and have installed SQL 2008 R2 (same version as the current production instance). My thinking is then I can just do a backup or copy of the production databases, import them on the new server, change the new server name/ip to the same as the old one, and everything should go smoothly. My only problem is that I have zero knowledge or experience with SQL so it's going to be a tough slog.
My first question; having installed the new SQL instance and launching Server Management Studio, I notice that it only gives me an option for connecting to a Database Engine of name (local). The original one I need to replace shows it's own name as a server name (for instance, "PROD-MSQL-VM"). It will also let me log in with my domain administration account; the new one with (local) does not, it only lets me log in with a newly created "sa" account. I'm wondering if when I did my original SQL installation I named something incorrectly that it's not accessible from outside itself?