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P2V SBS 2011

J

jenuster

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 8, 2011
Messages
154
Has anyone had experience P2V'ing SBS 2008/2011 servers? If so, I would love to hear any gotchas/overall experience. I'm a little worried in P2V'ing the box as its a DC as well.
 
I've done 2003 sbs with success, haven't done any newer, as they were setup virtual. I used directory services restore mode with 2003, making sure all the exchange & sql services were stopped (actually just about any service I could stop I did). I'm guessing the process is pretty similar for the newer ones.
 
VMWare.

Did you do a hot or cold migration? I will be using VMware Converter.
 
I did a Warm and hot/cold conversion. Depends what SBS version.

Easiest way is to do a VMware converter standalone to vm workstation image and from there convert it again to a vmware vsphere host. Its kinda hot/cold but it works well and its pretty fast as well.

SBS 2003 entirely possible to do a warm, through AD restore mode.
Only thing I usually do just in case is to install MS loopback adapter for sbs 2003 and reconfig it to be you primary network connector otherwise you might bsod.
 
Last edited:
I have done SBS 2011 P2V,

Make sure you know your AD restore mode password.

Use the online converter and move it to the ESXi host

Boot into AD restore mode and remove your old network adapters, then set your static IP up on the new adapter.

Reboot into normal mode and everything should be ok
 
k1pp3r said:
I have done SBS 2011 P2V,

Make sure you know your AD restore mode password.

Use the online converter and move it to the ESXi host

Boot into AD restore mode and remove your old network adapters, then set your static IP up on the new adapter.

Reboot into normal mode and everything should be ok
Click to expand...

If you do vm workstation image to vm host you don't really need to do any of that. But DSRM password should be always kept and or reset.
 
k1pp3r said:
I have done SBS 2011 P2V,

Make sure you know your AD restore mode password.

Use the online converter and move it to the ESXi host

Boot into AD restore mode and remove your old network adapters, then set your static IP up on the new adapter.

Reboot into normal mode and everything should be ok
Click to expand...

Thanks. So after the conversion is complete, do I edit the VM add a NIC, and then boot into AD Restore mode, and finally delete the converted NICS and setup the new NIC?
 
I did a sbs 2k3 warm. Stopping all the services (DNS/DHCP/Exchange/AD if you can stop it do) was the trick for me to make things easy.
 
So when I tried the P2V, converter tells me vss snapshot failed. Apparently you can't do VSS snapshot in DSRM mode.

Any ideas? This is SBS 2011 box.
 
Try it my way.
1. Make sure NO TRAFIC IS COMING INTO THE SERVER.
2. Convert in normal mode with vmware converter to a usb disk and the image file you want it vmworkstation.
3. Once completed fire up another machine or even the same one and use standalone converter to (you can edit the stream to include vmtools)stream vm workstation image to your host..
4. Shut of your sbs server.
5. Fire up the SBS VM.
 
I've P2V'd a few SBS 2003 boxes, and I've found it to be easiest just to cold clone the box and not having to worry about stopping all the services or DSRM or anything like that.

Yeah, it might result in a little more downtime, but you don't have to worry about AD or any of the services freaking out (too much).

I imagine SBS 2011 would behave about the same way.
 
In the end, I left domain services running (VSS does not work if this service is turned off) and converted the box. I made sure there were no incoming connections and 500 GB server took about 2 hours and 45 minutes to convert.

After I got it to a VM, i booted in DSRM mode and took care of the post p2v tasks.

So in sbs 2011, you can't use converter in DSRM mode nor can you use converter if domain service is stopped.
 
Disk2vhd

Run for each partition then mount and fix permission on vhd

This has worked on hyper-v
 
BigD1108 said:
I've P2V'd a few SBS 2003 boxes, and I've found it to be easiest just to cold clone the box and not having to worry about stopping all the services or DSRM or anything like that.

Yeah, it might result in a little more downtime, but you don't have to worry about AD or any of the services freaking out (too much).

I imagine SBS 2011 would behave about the same way.
Click to expand...

Hey just curious as we are trying to do 2011 and both Disk2VHD and XenConvert require a running VSS to convert which portable Windows versions do not have. How do you cold clone? We found a roundabout way of imaging the disk outside of Windows, mounting it inside and then running these.

Which leads me to the current issue: you know how most of the time you have to repair Windows after P2V in order to boot properly? Well we have tried the only two ISOs we have access to and neither get passed this "compatibility check" screen complaining about being booted from the installation disc (well duh?). Anyone know how SBS 2011 can be repaired as the final step in virtualization?

Oh and sorry for the necro.
 
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