Migrating .REDO logs?

[larstr]

I've got one server left that is still version VMware ESX Server 2.5.5 build-57619[/i]. This server has 1 VM left, and the reason that this VM hasn't been migrated until now is a 2TB lun that serves a Linux file server. The block size of this lun is 8Mb, so you're not able to see it from ESX 3.x. Now that we've freed up san space for moving this (one vmfs2 lun for exporting into, and one vmfs3 lun that we import into) we shut down the file server and put the disks in redo mode. The server was then started again and is now running on the esx 2.5 box. Exporting and importing has taken a few days and the REDO logs are currently ~5Gb (export/import still running).

Would it be possible to shut down the server, copy the redo logs over to vmfs3 and the commit them to these disks before powering on the server on esx 3.5? Or would it be better to use alternate methods such as rsync or restore from backup? The server has ~1.5 million files so I'm unsure how long such a task would take.

Lars

[larstr]

Never mind... I have now restored 11G from backup of file data into the moved disks and the VM is running on 3.5 now. TSM is really nice when you find the right parameters.

Lars

[dkfbp]

Next time you are in the process of moving one server from esx 2.5.x to 3.x try to use vizioncore vMigrator. It actually

uses the redo and commits the redo on the target when it has finished. We have moved 180 VM's with that tool so far.

[larstr]

I'm not so sure that vMigrator would be able to do this as we had an 8MB block size of the source lun. Because of this we had to move the data temporary via another vmfs2 lun with a block size that esx3 could see. Or will vMigrator do this automatically too? Even though this includes a few extra steps and manual routines, it was faster than moving the data over the network.

Lars

[dkfbp]

With vMigrator you could copy the complete VM from a VMFS2 lun to a VMFS3 lun over the network. The only downtime would be in the end when the source server shuts down and the target server commits the .redo and powers up. It will even upgrade your virtual hardware and vmware tools.

[larstr]

Thanks for the info.