Migrate VM from Windows Server 2008R2 to Server 2012R2

[melville]

Hi all,

I want to migrate three VM guest OS(2003 and 2008R2) from a Server2008R2 Hyper-V host to a Server2012R2 Hyper-V host. Both Servers are in Workgroup environment. Can access each through Window share folders.
There is one NAS storage (4TB available) can store backup files and is accessible for both.

My question: What is the best way for me to the migration? Can you please show me the steps?

We have Veeam backp installed on another Windows 7 client as backup software. Backup media is NAS and USB disks.

There is a limition.
The total VMs files on current Server 2008R2 are over 900GB, and the new Server 2012R2 box has about 1.1TB space. I concern the replica and recover may have disk capacity problem.

There is one concern. It seems I cannot export VMs from Server2008R2 and import to Server2012R2 directly considering following post.
http://blogs.technet.com/b/rmilne/archi ... ageIndex=2

Thank you!!!

Alex

[Vitaliy S.]

Hi Alex,

The easiest way would be to use replication jobs from one host to another. Can you please tell me why do you want to stick to backup jobs?

Thank you!

[melville]

Hi Vitaliy,

Thanks for your reply.

There are two options for me. Not too sure if both of them are available to use.
1. Windows copy. Directly copy the folder of VM files from Server2008R2 to Server2012R2. And import the VM into Hyper-V of Server2012R2.
2. Veeam backup Replication. There are quite a lot of posts regarding how to set up replication. Like this http://www.veeam.com/kb1522
But I don't know how to stand up the server on failover server if there is replication copy. For my case, I am wondering how to stand up the VMs on Hyper-V of Server2012R2.

Thank you!

[Vitaliy S.]

Hi Alex,

If I were you, I would do this:

1. Configure replication job to transfer all the VMs.
2. And then do permanent failover to make VM replicas your new production VMs.

Thanks!

[veremin]

Planned failover might also come in quite handy, as it shutdowns source VMs prior and transfers final changes prior to failover. Thanks.

[melville]

Thanks guys. Please let me the replication job.