Migration from Clustered EV solution to building blocks solution

[GulzarShaikhAUS]

Dear All,

We are looking at a solution for a custmer to help migrate his clustered EV solution which is a 2+1 cluster to building blocks. Kindly spare some expereice or details if anyone is aware of.

Current config - EV 10.0.4 with mailbox and journal archiving. two instances of EV one of mailbox archiving and one for journal. so one node is a stanby capable of taking both instances in case of failures. The cluster is a MSCS with drive letters and not mount points. Widnows 2008 R2.

The environment to migrate to is a Hyper-v vritual environment with CSV config. The EV would also be upgrade to version 11. So basically the move will be from physical to virtual machines. We are looking at building blocks as preferred solution due to ease of use and efficiency. Also we would like to destribute the load of archving to 4 nodes instead of 2 to achieve optimal performance. Also in case of any issues with a perticular node we should be able to manually move the archiving from one node to another.  Due to need of real time archiving for journal mailbox we are considering 3 nodes to use for journal archiving and one node for mailbox archiving. Through we want to make sure that the mailbox archving can be moved to any node in case of a failure.

Another suggestion is to move away from drive letters to mount points.

Kindly share your experience and expertise.

Thanks 

[VirgilDobos · Accepted solution]

Hello there,

During the upgrade, when you move from physical to virtual servers, you can use the EV Server Settings Migration wizard: http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO42445. At this stage you can migrate from clustered to non-clustered configuration as the Migration Wizard will automatically detect the EV configuration and allows you to convert directly.

Once the upgrade and migration is complete, you can add additional EV servers to the EV site to be used for load balancing and building-blocks as required. You said you plan to load balance the journal archiving, just be aware that you cannot add one Exchange server as archiving target to two (or more) EV servers. One Exchange target to many EV servers is not supported by design. Assuming you have multiple journaling Exchange servers.

Finally, it's easy to relocate EV data to mount points and there are techotes available for that. For example:

1. Moving vault store partitions: http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH35742

2. Moving Index locations: http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO59084

Hope this helps.

[GulzarShaikhAUS]

Thanks Virgil

[GulzarShaikhAUS]

Per your experience with this tool, what is the fail back option in case the migratin dos not work. Can I get to work the old systems back?

I am also not sure about how it will migrate the two instances and exchange server confguration. Currently we have two instances. Will it move everything to one node first and then we need to add more nodes and reconfigure the settings??

[VirgilDobos]

Sure, the migration tool just disables the EV services before the migration and copies essential EV configuration files in a migration package. If the migration tool fails, which is quite unlikely, you can simply enable the EV services back and start EV from the current environment until the issue is rectified. Obviously, you need to present the storage back to the servers. I used this tool many many times and only one time it failed due to some corrupted indexes.

If it fails, then you will have to migrate using the manual method covered in this article: TECH141481

[GulzarShaikhAUS]

Many thanks Virgil

[GulzarShaikhAUS]

Hi Virgil

What if I want to migrate to another cluster? will the procedure remain same?

[VirgilDobos]

Yes, the EV Migration wizard is your friend. :)