IBM Director Agent - Remove Before Converting from P to Virtual?

[GFFG]

Hi,

Should one remove the agent before converting and then re-install afterwards?

My Vmware teacher mentioned something about the product causing issues with the inventory collection process.

I wonder what would show up? All the Vmware virtual devices I'd imagine.

[dpomeroy]

I leave the Director or SIM agents installed on the physical server and then uninstall from the VM after the P2V. The reason is we want to make as few changes as possible to the physical server in case we need to go back to the physical box and also to reduce the risk of the process. I don't see any benefit in keeping the vendor hardware agents installed inside of VMs.

Don Pomeroy

VMware Communities User Moderator

[GFFG]

I agree one can always uninstall the agent after. There is a good reason however for keeping the agent on there. And that is to schedule automatica reboots after hours. I agree though who cares about hardware inventory in a virtual environment and who cares about remote control when RDP works+VMconsole.

However to actually utilize ibm driector after migration, I assume one must re-install the agent. As the director Sever will not see the agent as having the same MAC etc. Almost like cloning it needs another unique sid. I found this out in the manual of IBM director, through a cloning process a long time ago.

Thanks for your help!

[evandena]

We've experienced problems with IBM Director agent and P2V Windows 2000 boxes. BSOD on startip. Thankfully all our Win2k servers are in VMware.

[GFFG]

What does BSOD stand for and startip?

So far when I re-install the agent I choose no remote control and no serve options raid obviously.

The only realy benefit is the scheduled auto-reboots that one can perform.

We are on IBM Director 4.2 though.

[dpomeroy · Accepted solution]

There are other ways to schedule reboots of servers than the Director agent. IMO Director is kind of flaky and has given us problems in the past. Personally I would remove the Director agents from VMs and use another method to schedule reboots.

Even if you want to keep it, I wouldn't remove it from the physical box before doing the P2V, remove and reinstall after the P2V would be my plan.

Don Pomeroy

VMware Communities User Moderator

[GFFG]

Yah I guess I need another package instead of IBM director, it use to help given we buy IBM.

What do you use for auto restartes of servers?

[ac57846]

I too have had issues with Director agents (and ServRAID services) after P2V, I would set the services to disabled before doing the P2V.

To schedule a VM restart how about the scheduled task in Virtual Centre? Alternatively a scheduled task in the guest OS itself, I've used that on Citrix servers for years.

Al.

[GFFG]

Thats a great idea, I remember reading best practices before converting and that is to shut down major services before conversion.

The serveraid is only used to talk to the controller to warn via smtp or traps that a drive could be going wrong. This won't work in the virtual world as it's all certified virtual devices.

Basically I'd uninstall the agent right after first boot, however your recommendation to disable and stop the service prior is excellent advice!

Thanks!

[GFFG]

Just to finalize this post.

I performed the P2V with IBM agent left on production server.

I however set the IBM services (2 of them) to manual and STOPPED THE SERVICE.

After converted, I uninstalled the AGENT.

All seems fine and is working great.

Thanks, I will look into the reboot via virtual center!!!