QuickMigration: Beware of Issues

[jmurray]

Just so others don't fall into the same trap I did, be careful when using the VEEAM quickmigrate function. I believe it has some bugs that pop up under the following scenario:

-Source Host: VMWare 5.5 Update 2
-Target Host: VMWare 6.5 Update 2
-Using B&R 9.5.0.1038

On two virtual machines running Exchange 2013 and SQL Server 2012R2, the quickmigration finished successfully. Upon successful completion, I had set the source to be deleted and the migrated VM to be powered on. On first inspection, the virtual machines looked fine, but once you tried to install VMWARE tools, the services would not start correctly and a wide variety of small strange issues popped up. In the case of the Exchange server, the migrated VM was unusable. I attempted to uninstall and reinstall the VMWare tools without success. Eventually I was forced to perform a full restore.

Note: I was able to quickmigrate 6 other VMs just fine. I do not believe that the quickmigrate function is compatible with SQL or Exchange at this point. If I were to try again, I would make sure to uncheck the "delete source VM", which is checked by default.

[Vitaliy S.]

Hi Jason,

That's quite an unexpected behavior. Not sure if it relates to the vSphere version or not, but next time I would start investigation with reviewing the Windows Event log (VSS/Application related) to see why services cannot start etc. Also, feel free to contact our technical support team to try to resolve the issues over the remote WebEx session, if you see these things happen again.

Thanks!

[jmurray]

I did open a ticket for the restore, which was successful. Just glad I did one last backup before starting the QM!

[Gostev]

I do not believe that the quickmigrate function is compatible with SQL or Exchange at this point.

Putting VMDK movement aside, all quick migration effectively does is suspends (or powers off) VM on the source host, and resumes (or powers on) VM on the target host. These are basic VM management operations that should not be causing any issues to any apps. It's also impossible for one "not to be compatible" with the specific applications, when it does not interact with what's running inside of the VM. Finally, quick migration functionality is so old and so widely used that it is hard to believe it can still have such a terrible bugs of "nothing works" type.

As such, I am much more inclined to suspect issues with the target host or storage... or may be yet another bug in vSphere 6.5? Worth investigating with our support.

On a separate note, "VMWare 6.5 Update 2" does not exist yet - I assume this is just a typo.

[jmurray]

Yes, 6.5 U1 (Customized Dell ISO)

[redhorse]

Hello,

we want to move our Exchange 2010-Server and SQL 2012-Server to a new datastore but we don't have storage vMotion licensed. To avoid offline time we want to migrate both VMs with Veeam quick migration, but I'm insecure if this really works with those application server? I already migrated about 20 VMs with quick migration to the new storage without any issue (except vCSA which failed) but is it supported these server? Are there any experiences?

Thanks in advance

[DGrinev]

Hello,

Quick Migration doesn't interact with the applications inside VMs, so you should be able to migrate Exchange and SQL without issues.
Please take a look on the similar discussion here. Thanks!

[foggy]

You can consider using planned failover to ensure minimum VM downtime during migration.