using B&R to move vm's to new volume on same host?

[ceez]

hi everyone,

we have a hyper-v 2008r2 environment and vm's stored on a dell powervault. I have created a new LUN and attached it to the host that currently has the vm's that I need to move to this newly created LUN.

So my host has two drive letters, ie X: and Y:
X: has the currently running guests
Y: is empty and I want to move the guests onto it.

I find that restoring a vm via veeam is much much much faster than using any copy. move, export, import feature of hyper-v.

Can I run restore, select the source host as the target host and select Y: as the destination without any issues? I went through the restore wizard and it says that the vm needs to be powered off message followed by the source vm will be automatically deleted. I didnt carry on because I wasnt sure if this would work anyway.

Unless there's a better way, what are my options now?

thanks
ceez

[foggy]

Cesar, are you trying to restore the VM keeping its original name? I'd recommend to leave the original VM until you make sure the restored VM operates as expected. You can either restore it with a new name or use replication job instead. Create and run replication job for that VM, shut the source VM down, perform final replication of the latest changes, and then failover to the replica VM. No data loss and minimum VM downtime. After performing permanent failover and making sure the replica VM operates as required, you can safely remove the original VM and rename the replica to the original VM name, if needed.

[ceez]

Yes I am keeping everything the same, I am just moving the guest with all its configuration related files from X drive to Y drive on the same host.

I have never worked with replica but from what I gather it can be used to replicate to other single hosts, dr sites and host OS upgrades (2008r2 to 2012r2).

can I use replicate to move the vm between the same host?

[Vitaliy S.]

Yes, that's all possible. Please see this step-by-step Guide for running replica job and doing permanent VM failover > http://helpcenter.veeam.com/backup/70/h ... lover.html

[ceez]

alright, trying it out locally on same host with different volume, so far two replicas without issues.

thanks!

[ceez]

I have a curious question, there's a folder that seems to be named with a GUID, within that folder there's a file called running.rbk.
i.e.:
O:\Virtual Machines\TestVM\bd929ea54bcb44639777690f63f08963\running.rbk

I have done a permanent fail over, the old system is powered off and the new replica is powered on and working. I've tried fulling shutting down the vm thinking that it could be a temp file but it still there are I power on again.

Any ideas?

[Vitaliy S.]

Hi Cesar,

You can safely remove this file manually, see this existing topic for more info > Replication to achieve site migration

Thanks!

[ceez]

Thank for the link Vitaly, I'll clean those up.

the replica worked without a problem, but I did notice that the vm would run from a avhd snapshot file. After the permanent failover I had to shutdown for the merge to complete and then power on. Is that normal procedure on a permanent failover?

Other than it the replica worked flawlessly on 8 production vm's being replicated to a different volume on the same host. After the replica job completed I shutdown the original vm's, performed a failover which automatically powered on the replica, then performed a permanent failover which deleted the snapshot, powered off the VM to merge after the deleted snapshot, powered on and we're good to go.

[Vitaliy S.]

In Hyper-V 2012 R2 all snapshots are merged automatically, however if you're on Hyper-V 2008 R2, then VM snapshot can only be consolidated during VM power on/power off cycle (by Microsoft design).

[ceez]

good to know that. thank you for your help and information.

this case is closed!