SBS2008 with Hyper V to Virtual

[Daniells]

In a week I plan to convert a physical Windows Small Business Server 2008 (SBS2008) to a virtual machine. Hyper-V with one guest is installed on this SBS2008 machine and its also the primary Backup Excec 2014 server.

The plan is to install Hyper-V Core 2012 R2 to the physical machine and run the SBS2008 server and the other guest on Hyper-V Core to take advantage of the ram thats installed on this server. The server has 60GB ram installed. Windows Small Business Server limits Ram to 32GB. Hyper-V Core has a 1TB Ram limit.

The problem im running into is this is the only Hyper-V machine on the network and the Convert to Virtual option in Backup Excec 2014 is greyed out so I cannot use Backup Exec 2014 to convert this SBS2008 machine to a virtual.

I have a daily backup that the Simplified Disaster Recovery is not enabled on so when I called Symantec they said I needed to complete a one time backup with it enabled to activate the convert to virtual. This didnt make alot of sense as the option to backup and convert to virtual was disabled but I did it anyways and after the one time bakcup completed with SDR green I still cannot convert to virtual.

Does anyone have any suggestions? 

[Colin_Weaver · Accepted solution]

If you are planning to convert your only physical system to Hyper_V Core, are you aware that a BE media server cannot be installed directly on Hyper-V Core (it needs a standard Hyper-V Host) and that a BE media server cannot access a tape drive if running inside a VM. These two points might mean your design/idea is flawed anyway.

Also the Symantec technician is correct no SDR light = no P2V/B2V operation possible ,although as you still have it greyed out there maybe something additional to this causing your problem. For instance do you have license for Virtual Agent backups - as I think a P2V restore may need this (although I am not a licensing expert so I could be wrong)

Also have you got a Hyper-V host configured inside the Backup & Restore section as a server object as it is possible that if there is no virtual host configured as a server object that the convert to virtual option will be greyed out.