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CadenL's avatar
CadenL
Level 6
10 years ago
Solved

EV Migration to virtual machines

Hi

I have an aging physical EV server running EV11.0 on Windows 2008 R2. This server started it's life running everything on a single box including EV mailbox and journal archiving tasks and also SQL for the EV databases. As more users have now come on board, more messages through the journal and EV upgraded using 'in-place' upgrades, the fact that everything was on a single box was somehwat overlooked. It is now time to get rid of this server and move over to virtual machines. I want to take this opportunity to also go to Windows 2012 ready for EV12 upgrades in the future. Additionally everything was on local storage before, but now I want to move the archives to a NAS device and Indexes to a SAN array

I plan to create 3 Windows 2012 virtual machines one for EV SQL and one each for mailbox and journal archiving. My question is to ask if there is a logical order to migrate everything?

I've always used the migration wizard in the past as it works well and provides great flexibility in being able to relocate archives, indexes and SQL databases to different locations in a single go.... and it reduces user error compared to manual migration methods. But will the migration wizard work for an EV11 source server? I also may need to change the server name and also look to upgrade to EV11.0.1 CHF3.

Moving the EV SQL databases is fine and that's pretty easy to do - so I'm fine with that, but should I be looking at initially moving both the EV mailbox and journal tasks from the physical server to a single vm initially and then split the journal task out to a second vm afterwards, or perhaps split the journal task as the first step (onto one of the new vm's) and then move over the remaining mailbox task from the physical server to the second vm.

Journal and Mailbox tasks have their own vault stores but in a single VSG (shared in group) but they share index locations - I was plannig to close both the indexes and archive locations as part of this migration and open new ones in each location.

Additionally - and I'm not entirely sure of the impact of this, but at some point in the past, the EV server was changed to create an Index server group - just with this single server in it. I understand that this is a 'can't go back' operation, so how does this affect my need to split the journal task to a different EV server and move the mailbox task to a new EV server? Where should the indexes reside and should\must the new server be part of the same indexing group?

thanks

 

Enterprise Vault
Information Governance
  • TonySterling's avatar
    TonySterling
    10 years ago

    There should be a Recovery section.  Look for 

    Recovering Enterprise Vault using data-only backups 

  • GertjanA's avatar
    GertjanA
    Moderator
    10 years ago

    pfoe.

    Lots of questions, some answers.

    I believe you cannot use the migration wizard on EV11.

    I would first move the SQL databases. If you use an alias for your SQL (like evsql01\instance) it is a bit more easy.

    create a VM for SQL, install SQL (2012?) move databases following documentation.

    Verify that works ok.

    Create another VM, prepare that for EV (all prereqs etc.) copy over the data (and the indexes !!) (same driveletters as on prod)

    make sure you have an alias for this server (evsrv002 something)

    Install EV (same version you have in prod, including hotfixes/chf's.)

    Set EV in backup mode. (stores and indexes)

    ADD this server to the site, using the alias.

    verify data and indexes are indeed in sync.

    when running, perform a DR (using the USL function (building blocks), see admin manual)

    When the DR is ok (and effectively your prod is now running on your VM dr as being prod), verify functionality.

    Remove prod server from site. decommission ev on prod

    you now have seperated sql and ev, and have ev on vm and sql on vm.

    HOw to seperate our user and journal archving would be too difficult/much to describe here, but yu can now build a 2nd VM, install EV on it, and then start on splitting functionality.

    http://www.veritas.com/docs/000081331 as starting point.

    http://www.veritas.com/docs/000028296 for SQL

     

    regards,

     

    GJ

  • CadenL's avatar
    CadenL
    Level 6
    10 years ago

    Hiya

    Thanks for the comprehensive reply and it mainly makes sense. 

    The bit I'd just need to question a little more is the "Remove prod server from site. decommission ev on prod"  If I were to leave the EV server in the site (which is the physical server) and, having built another EV vm, following the http://www.veritas.com/docs/000081331 technote on moving EV from the physical server to the new vm. That way I would have the EV site with both the EV servers as virtual machines but all the services running on evsrv002. 

    Or is it better to "Remove prod server from site. decommission ev on prod" and then to simply again 'add' the new EV vm as a new server to the EV site?

    My concern is around the EV indexing server group - I've not worked with these before and unsure on if that would prevent me from easily decommissioning the ev prod server.

    many thanks

  • TonySterling's avatar
    TonySterling
    Moderator
    10 years ago

    If it were me I would lean towards doing a data-only DR scenario as detailed in the Admin guide to move from physical to virtual.

  • CadenL's avatar
    CadenL
    Level 6
    10 years ago

    Hi Tony

    Can you help me find the section in the Admin guide you're refering too? I can't find anything that's easliy identifiable as a data-only DR scenario.

     

    thanks

  • TonySterling's avatar
    TonySterling
    Moderator
    10 years ago

    There should be a Recovery section.  Look for 

    Recovering Enterprise Vault using data-only backups 

  • CadenL's avatar
    CadenL
    Level 6
    10 years ago

    Ah yes - got it (it's in the Backup and Recovery Guide)

    Many thanks -

    What are my options around the Indexing configuration? Ideally I'd like to have both the Mailbox and Journal EVservers running indexing tasks.... is that still ok given that the existing server is confugured in an index server group... Do I just need to add the second EV server into the same server group?