P2V a DC

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brandonlw

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Jun 8, 2011
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Over last Summer, I converted our physical servers into our new virtual environment (SAN + 2 hosts). I maintained a physical DC, because at the time it was considered to be a bad idea from the reading I did, which apparently isn't the case now ... I guess people just weren't comfortable with the idea at first.

Anyway ... what I'm trying to figure out is this: If I want to virtualize my current primary DC, what issues will I run into? The physical one is going to be offline and then set back up as a secondary DC eventually.
 
I am currently migrating 2 old Server 2003 DC's to virtual machines running Server 2008. Migrating a DC is very easy. Basically all you do is setup a new DC and have it replicate then copy over the roles. After reading that article doing a P2V conversion of a windows server DC sounds scary.

Here are the threads i learned from if you want to go that route.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1604323
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1603300
 
I agree ... that article made me change my mind quickly. After all, it's not like setting up a new one would be hard. My issue is I would like for the new, virtualized server to have the same name, so I guess I will be following parts of that article's recommendations.
 
I virtualized two 08 R2 DC's without issue two weeks ago (to XenServer) and I just did a P2V on one of the other off site backup DC's to Hyper-V without issue. I was a bit worried at first, but after two weeks from the initial two and still no problems. :)
 
I personally do not understand why a person would go through this hell, i would say dont P2V a DC its much easier to build new ones as VMs cleanly, allow the replication change the FMSO and Global Roles.
 
I just do it offline using ghost... something like Bartpe + ghost plugin with the correct nic / scsi drivers. Ghost it to a network share, and then I create a new VM and use bartpe again to lay the image back down (again gotta have the right VMware nic/scsi drivers on the bartpe disc). Once that is done, using converter enterprise, I perform a reconfigure which will inject the VMware drivers into the VM... it'll then boot without a BSOD.
 
dasaint said:
I personally do not understand why a person would go through this hell, i would say dont P2V a DC its much easier to build new ones as VMs cleanly, allow the replication change the FMSO and Global Roles.
Click to expand...

My main reason for wanting to do it was because I wanted to keep the same name.
 
I agree with building a new one and migrating. Much easier every time I have done it.
 
lopoetve said:
Build a new one and migrate. Trust me.
Click to expand...

No doubt, unless you have crazy installations of software on your DC, which in good practice you wouldnt, then you shouldnt have to spend more than what, 1 hour to rebuild a DC? Wouldnt bother p2ving.
 
Yeah. I would never recommend imaging or P2Ving a DC. It's absolutely critical that NTDS.DIT is the exact same when you bring the DC back up. Depending on the method you use, you could run in to USN rollback, or create lingering objects in the directory.

Save yourself a whole lot of potential trouble and just build a fresh DC, let replication occur, then demote the old DC if you desire. If retaining the same name is important, then demote the old DC and build a fresh DC with that name. If that's not an option (because you only have two DCs or something like that) then play the shell game. Build a new one with a temp name, promote, replicate, demote the old one and remove from AD, clean up DNS, build the new VM DC, and use that old name, then demote and remove the temporary DC.
 
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