Migrate Hyper V 2008 R2 to Hyper V 2012 R2

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Mabrito

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We have some Hyper V 2008 R2 servers and looking to migrate the VM's on them to our new Hyper V 2012 R2 servers. It looks like its not as simple as exporting the VM's and re-importing them on the new Hyper V 2012 R2 servers.

Is there an easy method to do this? Both Hyper V environments are controlled by the same SCVMM 2012 R2 servers. SCVMM also doesn't let you migrate the VM's from 2008 R2 to 2012 R2 it seems (was hoping it could automatically convert them).
 
Hmmm I think if snapshots are removed, SCVMM can take care of this. Can anyone confirm this suspicion of mine?
 
Clone one of the VMs, put it on an internal-only network, migrate it with SCVMM and see what happens?

Seems odd that this type of functionality wouldn't be built in. I know that MS hasn't quite caught up to VMware in terms of convenience just yet but this would seem to be a very basic thing that should work.
 
Please update us on what you find out. This is something we may be doing in the near future.

Edit: Enable thread subscription
 
I had zero issues moving VMs from 2008R2 HV servers to a new 2012 Cluster (When 2012 was first released). We aren't running SCVMM yet, so it was all done manually.
 
Veeam actually has a good solution for this. Veeam replication can replicate a VM from a 2008 R2 host to a 2012 R2 host. You'd need to shut down the source VM, run a final sync, then power up the destination VM, let it reboot once it discovers the new hardware, update the Integration Tools, and you're done.

Other than that, you're stuck doing export/import or doing a V2V, both of which require a long period of downtime for the VM.
 
I have been doing this the simple/easy way. Turn off the Virtual, copy the VHD over to the new server. Create new virtual (pick your generation, probably 1) and attach the VHD. Start it up,you will need to configure the static ip addresses if you have them. Install integration services and reboot. Should be done.

Each one has taken me about a half hour to do.
 
Seconded for Veeam replication, very easy to do and your downtime is minimal.
 
You can copy the VM from the 2008 box and import it on 2012. You don't even have to export it first. Have done this with hundreds of vms without issue.
 
It was the snapshot preventing me. Some of the VM's had snapshots and SCVMM wouldn't move them. Once the snapshots were removed SCVMM had no problem moving the VM. The caveat is...once the VM is moved to 2012 R2 Hyper V, it can not be migrated back to 2008 R2 Hyper V.
 
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