MS Windows Server migration - Physical to Virtual with NO P2V

[vmquestions0]

Hi,

I was wondering if someone could provide some ideas about the following situation we are running into:

We have a physical Windows 2003 Server file server that we want to virtualize.

Initally we wanted to P2V the server and it's storage and create a vmdk for the server (C: drive) and a different vmdk for its (D: drive which is the storage).

We are now thinking about the possibility of creating a new VM server with a clean install of Windows 2008 R2 and then copy the data to the SAN and present the LUN as RDM to the new VM Server.

I the following issues/questions:

1.) As I said before we will not perform a P2V instead we would like to create a new VM W2k8 server with the same name, IP etc... so at some point we can switch (the VM server will be in an isolated network until is ready) however how do we bring all the shares from the physical server to the new VM?

Could we use Robocopy for this? I was thinking about something like...

Run a full backup with robocopy from the phyisical W2k3 server to the new VM server which it will have a 😧 drive created and presented via RDM (LUN). But it will not work since the server has to be in an isolated network and it has to have the same name, etc...

2.) This is going to be one of the main File server in the company I heard that putting the data on LUN and preseting using RDM will increase the i/o? It's that true?

Could somone share some ideas about how do we manage this type of migration?

[AWo · Accepted solution]

1.) As I said before we will not perform a P2V instead we would like to create a new VM W2k8 server with the same name, IP etc... so at some point we can switch (the VM server will be in an isolated network until is ready) however how do we bring all the shares from the physical server to the new VM?

You can copy the registry part which holds all the shares from one server to the other.

Could we use Robocopy for this? I was thinking about something like...

You can synchronize the folders with robocopy.

2.) This is going to be one of the main File server in the company I heard that putting the data on LUN and preseting using

RDM will increase the i/o? It's that true?

Which I/O? Of course you'll see the traffic moving from the disks and their access path to the SAN.

AWo

VCP 3 & 4

Author @ vmwire.net

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[jpdicicco]

1.) As I said before we will not perform a P2V instead we would like to create a new VM W2k8 server with the same name, IP etc... so at some point we can switch (the VM server will be in an isolated network until is ready) however how do we bring all the shares from the physical server to the new VM?

Could we use Robocopy for this? I was thinking about something like...

I recommend you review the MS-approved method, which can be found here. It may include some things that you haven't considered.

Run a full backup with robocopy from the phyisical W2k3 server to the new VM server which it will have a 😧 drive created and presented via RDM (LUN). But it will not work since the server has to be in an isolated network and it has to have the same name, etc...

I suggest you put your VM on your regular network and use a new name, so you can make sure that everything (monitoring, updates, etc.) works on it before you cut over. Then your cutover could just include shutting down the P server and renaming your VM and rebooting.

Happy virtualizing!

JP

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