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Creating a full server to Hyper-V migration job

Use the following instructions to create a full server to Hyper-V migration job.

1. Click Get Started from the toolbar.

2. Select Double-Take Move and click Next.

3. Choose your source server. This is the server that you want to migrate.

   

   • Current Servers—This list contains the servers currently available in your console session. Servers that are not licensed for the workflow you have selected will be filtered out of the list. Select your source server from the list.
   • Find a New Server—If the server you need is not in the Current Servers list, click the Find a New Server heading. From here, you can specify a server along with credentials for logging in to the server. If necessary, you can click Browse to select a server from a network drill-down list.

   If you enter the source server's fully-qualified domain name, the Double-Take Console will resolve the entry to the server short name. If that short name resides in two different domains, this could result in name resolution issues. In this case, enter the IP address of the server.

   When specifying credentials for a new server, specify a user that is a member of the local Double-Take Admin and local administrator security groups on the source. The user must also have administrative rights for Microsoft Hyper-V.

    

4. Click Next to continue.

5. Choose the type of workload that you want to migrate. Under Server Workloads, in the Workload types pane, select Full Server to Hyper-V Migration. In the Workload items pane, select the volumes on the source that you want to migrate.

   

6. By default, Double-Take selects your entire source for migration. If desired, click the Replication Rules heading and expand the volumes under Folders. You will see that Double-Take automatically excludes particular files that cannot be used during the migration. If desired, you can exclude other files that you do not want to migrate, but be careful when excluding data. Excluded volumes, folders, and/or files may compromise the integrity of your installed applications. There are some volumes, folders, and files (identified in italics text) that you will be unable to exclude, because they are required for migration. For example, the boot files cannot be excluded because that is where the system state information is stored.

   Volumes and folders with a green highlight are included in their entirety in the migration. Volumes and folders highlighted in light yellow have individual files included in the migration. If there is no highlight, no part of the volume or folder is included in the migration. To modify the items selected, highlight a volume, folder, or file and click Add Rule. You can also enter a rule, including a wildcard specification, manually. Specify if you want to Include or Exclude the item. Also, specify if you want the rule to be recursive, which indicates the rule should automatically be applied to the subdirectories of the specified path. If you do not select Recursive, the rule will not be applied to subdirectories.

   If you need to remove a rule, highlight it in the list at the bottom and click Remove Rule. Be careful when removing rules. Double-Take may create multiple rules when you are adding directories. For example, if you add E:\Data to be included in protection, then E:\ will be excluded. If you remove the E:\ exclusion rule, then the E:\Data rule will be removed also.

7. Click Next to continue.

8. Choose your target server. This is the Hyper-V server that will host the virtual machine that, after the migration, will become your new source.

   

   • Current Servers—This list contains the servers currently available in your console session. Servers that are not licensed for the workflow you have selected and those not applicable to the workload type you have selected will be filtered out of the list. Select your target server from the list.
   • Find a New Server—If the server you need is not in the Current Servers list, click the Find a New Server heading. From here, you can specify a server along with credentials for logging in to the server. If necessary, you can click Browse to select a server from a network drill-down list.

   If you enter the target server's fully-qualified domain name, the Double-Take Console will resolve the entry to the server short name. If that short name resides in two different domains, this could result in name resolution issues. In this case, enter the IP address of the server.

   When specifying credentials for a new server, specify a user that is a member of the local Double-Take Admin and local administrator security groups on the source. The user must also have administrative rights for Microsoft Hyper-V.

    

9. Click Next to continue.

10. You have many options available for your server migration job. Configure those options that are applicable to your environment.

    Click a link below to see the options available for that section of the Set Options page.

    General

    

    For the Job name, specify a unique name for your job.

    Failover Options

    

    • Wait for user to initiate failover—By default, the cutover process will wait for you to initiate it, allowing you to control when cutover occurs. When a cutover occurs, the job will wait in the Protecting state for you to manually initiate the cutover process. Disable this option only if you want cutover to occur immediately after the mirror is complete.
    • Shutdown source server—Specify if you want to shut down the source server, if it is still running, before the source is cutover to the target, This option prevents identity conflicts on the network in those cases where the source and target are still both running and communicating.
    Replica Virtual Machine Location

    

    • Select the volume and folder on the target server that will hold the replica virtual machine—Select one of the volumes from the list to indicate the volume on the target where you want to store the new virtual server when it is created. The target volume must have enough Free Space to store the source data.
    • Full path where the replica virtual machine will be stored—Specify a location on the selected Volume to store the replica of the source. By specifying an existing folder, you can reuse an existing virtual machine on your Hyper-V target created by a previous protection job. This can be useful for pre-staging data on a virtual machine over a LAN connection and then relocating it to a remote site after the initial mirror is complete. You save time by skipping the virtual disk creation steps and performing a difference mirror instead of a full mirror. In order to use a pre-existing virtual disk, it must be a valid virtual disk and it cannot be attached to any registered virtual machine. In a WAN environment, you may want to take advantage of re-using an existing virtual disk by using a process similar to the following.
    1. Create a protection job in a LAN environment, letting Double-Take create the virtual disk for you.
    2. Complete the mirror process locally.

    3. Delete the protection job and when prompted, select to keep the replica.

    4. From the Hyper-V Manager, delete the replica virtual machine, which will delete the virtual machine configuration but will keep the associated .vhd files.
    5. Shut down and move the Hyper-V target server to your remote site.

    6. After the Hyper-V target server is back online at the remote site, create a new protection job for the same source server. Double-Take will reuse the existing .vhd files and perform a difference mirror over the WAN to bring the virtual machine up-to-date.

    Replica Virtual Machine Configuration

    

    • Replica virtual machine display name—Specify the name of the replica virtual machine. This will be the display name of the virtual machine on the host system. 
    • Number of processors—Specify how many processors to create on the new virtual machine. The number of processors on the source is displayed to guide you in making an appropriate selection. If you select fewer processors than the source, your clients may be impacted by slower responses. The maximum number of processors on a host is four.
    • Amount of memory—Specify the amount of memory, in MB, to create on the new virtual machine. The memory on the source is displayed to guide you in making an appropriate selection. If you select less memory than the source, your clients may be impacted by slower responses.
    • Map source virtual switches to target virtual switches—Identify how you want to handle the network mapping after cutover. The Source Network Adapter column lists the NICs from the source. Map each one to a Target Network Adapter, which is a virtual network on the target.
    • Power on replica virtual machine after failover—By default, the replica virtual machine will automatically be powered on after the cutover process is complete. If you want the replica virtual machine to remain powered off, disable this option.
    Replica Virtual Machine Volumes

    

    • Replica Disk Size—For each volume you are protecting, specify the size of the replica disk on the target. Be sure and include the value in MB or GB for the disk. The value must be at least the size of the specified Used Space on that volume.

      In some cases, the replica virtual machine may use more virtual disk space than the size of the source volume due to differences in how the virtual disk's block size is formatted and how hard links are handled. To avoid this issue, specify the size of your replica to be at least 20 MB larger.

       

    • Replica Disk Format—For each volume you are protecting, specify the format of the disk, Dynamic or Fixed, that will be created on the replica virtual machine. Any disk format specification will be discarded if you are reusing a disk from the Full path where the replica virtual machine will be stored from the Replica Virtual Machine Location section.

    • Storage Controller—For each volume you are protecting, specify the type of Storage Controller that you want to use for each volume on the target.

      The system volume must be an IDE controller. In addition, up to two more volumes can be attached to an IDE controller. If you are protecting more than three volumes on the source, you will need to install the Hyper-V Integration Components to acquire a SCSI device. See your Hyper-V documentation for more information.

      If your source is Windows 2003 or Windows 2008 with no service packs and you have selected a SCSI controller, you will need to manually install the Hyper-V Integration Components after failover to attach these volumes to the replica virtual machine.

    Replica Virtual Machine Network Settings

    

    • Use advanced settings for replica virtual machine network configuration—This option allows you to configure advanced network settings, which are primarily for WAN support.

    • Source network adapter—Select a network adapter on the source and specify the Target IP addresses, Default Gateways, and DNS Server addresses to be used after cutover. If you add multiple gateways or DNS servers, you can sort them by using the Move Up and Move Down buttons. Repeat this step for each network adapter on the source.

      Updates made during cutover will be based on the network adapter name when protection is established. If you change that name, you will need to delete the job and re-create it so the new name will be used during cutover.

      If you update one of the advanced settings (IP address, gateway, or DNS server), then you must update all of them. Otherwise, the remaining items will be left blank. If you do not specify any of the advanced settings, the replica virtual machine will be assigned the same network configuration as the source.

       

    Mirror, Verify & Orphaned Files

    

    • Mirror all files—All protected files will be mirrored from the source to the target.
    • Mirror different files—Only those protected files that are different based on date and time, size, or attributes will be mirrored from the source to the target.
    • Mirror only if the file on the source is newer than the copy on the target—This option is not available for full server to Hyper-V migration jobs.
    • Use block checksum for comparisons—For those files flagged as different, the mirroring process can perform a block checksum comparison and send only those blocks that are different.

    • Enable scheduled verification—Verification is the process of confirming that the source replica data on the target is identical to the original data on the source. Verification creates a log file detailing what was verified as well as which files are not synchronized. If the data is not the same, can automatically initiate a remirror, if configured. The remirror ensures data integrity between the source and target. When this option is enabled, Double-Take will verify the source replica data on the target and generate a verification log.

      Because of the way the Windows Cache Manager handles memory, machines that are doing minimal or light processing may have file operations that remain in the cache until additional operations flush them out. This may make Double-Take files on the target appear as if they are not synchronized. When the Windows Cache Manager releases the operations in the cache on the source and target, the files will be updated on the target.

       

    • Verify on this interval—Specify the interval between verification processes.
    • Begin immediately—Select this option if you want to start the verification schedule immediately after the job is established.
    • Begin at this time—Select this option if you want to start the verification at the specified date and time.
    • Mirror files to the target server when verifying—When this option is enabled, in addition to verifying the data and generating a log, Double-Take will also mirror to the target any protected files that are different on the source.
    • Mirror only if the file on the source is newer than the copy on the target—This option is not available for full server to Hyper-V migration jobs.
    • Use block checksum for comparisons—For those files flagged as different, the mirroring process can perform a block checksum comparison and send only those blocks that are different.

    • Calculate size of protected data before mirroring—Specify if you want Double-Take to determine the mirroring percentage calculation based on the amount of data being protected. If the calculation is enabled, it is completed before the job starts mirroring, which can take a significant amount of time depending on the number of files and system performance. If your job contains a large number of files, for example, 250,000 or more, you may want to disable the calculation so that data will start being mirrored sooner. Disabling calculation will result in the mirror status not showing the percentage complete or the number of bytes remaining to be mirrored.

      The calculated amount of protected data may be slightly off if your data set contains compressed or sparse files.

       

    • Delete orphaned files—An orphaned file is a file that exists in the replica data on the target, but does not exist in the protected data on the source. This option specifies if orphaned files should be deleted on the target during a mirror, verification, or restoration.

      Orphaned file configuration is a per target configuration. All jobs to the same target will have the same orphaned file configuration.

      The orphaned file feature does not delete alternate data streams. To do this, use a full mirror, which will delete the additional stream(s) when the file is re-created.

      If delete orphaned files is enabled, carefully review any replication rules that use wildcard definitions. If you have specified wildcards to be excluded from protection, files matching those wildcards will also be excluded from orphaned file processing and will not be deleted from the target. However, if you have specified wildcards to be included in your protection, those files that fall outside the wildcard inclusion rule will be considered orphaned files and will be deleted from the target.

      If you want to move orphaned files rather than delete them, you can configure this option along with the move deleted files feature to move your orphaned files to the specified deleted files directory. See Target server properties for more information.

      During a full mirror, orphaned file processing success messages will be logged to a separate orphaned file log. This keeps the Double-Take log from being overrun with orphaned file success processing messages. Orphaned files processing statistics and any errors in orphaned file processing will still be logged to the Double-Take log, and during difference mirrors, verifications, and restorations, all orphaned file processing messages are logged to the Double-Take log. The orphaned file log is located in the Logging folder specified for the source. See Log file properties for details on the location of that folder. The orphaned log file is overwritten during each orphaned file processing during a full mirror, and the log file will be a maximum of 50 MB.

       

    Network Route

    

    For Send data to the target server using this route, Double-Take will select, by default, a target route for transmissions. If desired, specify an alternate route on the target that the data will be transmitted through. This allows you to select a different route for Double-Take traffic. For example, you can separate regular network traffic and Double-Take traffic on a machine with multiple IP addresses.

    The IP address used on the source will be determined through the Windows route table.

     

    Compression

    

    To help reduce the amount of bandwidth needed to transmit Double-Take data, compression allows you to compress data prior to transmitting it across the network. In a WAN environment this provides optimal use of your network resources. If compression is enabled, the data is compressed before it is transmitted from the source. When the target receives the compressed data, it decompresses it and then writes it to disk. You can set the level from Minimum to Maximum to suit your needs.

    Keep in mind that the process of compressing data impacts processor usage on the source. If you notice an impact on performance while compression is enabled in your environment, either adjust to a lower level of compression, or leave compression disabled. Use the following guidelines to determine whether you should enable compression.

    • If data is being queued on the source at any time, consider enabling compression.
    • If the server CPU utilization is averaging over 85%, be cautious about enabling compression.
    • The higher the level of compression, the higher the CPU utilization will be.
    • Do not enable compression if most of the data is inherently compressed. Many image (.jpg, .gif) and media (.wmv, .mp3, .mpg) files, for example, are already compressed. Some images files, such as .bmp and .tif, are uncompressed, so enabling compression would be beneficial for those types.
    • Compression may improve performance even in high-bandwidth environments.
    • Do not enable compression in conjunction with a WAN Accelerator. Use one or the other to compress Double-Take data.

    All jobs from a single source connected to the same IP address on a target will share the same compression configuration.

     

    Bandwidth

    

    Bandwidth limitations are available to restrict the amount of network bandwidth used for Double-Take data transmissions. When a bandwidth limit is specified, Double-Take never exceeds that allotted amount. The bandwidth not in use by Double-Take is available for all other network traffic.

    All jobs from a single source connected to the same IP address on a target will share the same bandwidth configuration.

     

    • Do not limit bandwidth—Double-Take will transmit data using 100% bandwidth availability.
    • Use a fixed limit—Double-Take will transmit data using a limited, fixed bandwidth. Select a Preset bandwidth limit rate from the common bandwidth limit values. The Bandwidth field will automatically update to the bytes per second value for your selected bandwidth. This is the maximum amount of data that will be transmitted per second. If desired, modify the bandwidth using a bytes per second value. The minimum limit should be 3500 bytes per second.
    • Use scheduled limits—Double-Take will transmit data using a dynamic bandwidth based on the schedule you configure. Bandwidth will not be limited during unscheduled times.
    • New—Click New to create a new scheduled bandwidth limit. Specify the following information.
    • Daytime entry—Select this option if the start and end times of the bandwidth window occur in the same day (between 12:01 AM and midnight). The start time must occur before the end time.
    • Overnight entry—Select this option if the bandwidth window begins on one day and continues past midnight into the next day. The start time must be later than the end time, for example 6 PM to 6 AM.
    • Day—Enter the day on which the bandwidth limiting should occur. You can pick a specific day of the week, Weekdays to have the limiting occur Monday through Friday, Weekends to have the limiting occur Saturday and Sunday, or Every day to have the limiting repeat on all days of the week.
    • Start time—Enter the time to begin bandwidth limiting.
    • End time—Enter the time to end bandwidth limiting.
    • Preset bandwidth—Select a bandwidth limit rate from the common bandwidth limit values. The Bandwidth field will automatically update to the bytes per second value for your select bandwidth.
    • Bandwidth—If desired, modify the bandwidth using a bytes per second value. The minimum limit should be 3500 bytes per second.
    • Edit—Click Edit to modify an existing scheduled bandwidth limit.
    • Delete—Click Delete to remove a scheduled bandwidth limit.

    If you change your job option from Use scheduled limits to Do not limit bandwidth or Use a fixed limit, any schedule that you created will be preserved. That schedule will be reused if you change your job option back to Use scheduled limits.

    You can manually override a schedule after a job is established by selecting Other Job Options, Set Bandwidth. If you select No bandwidth limit or Fixed bandwidth limit, that manual override will be used until you go back to your schedule by selecting Other Job Options, Set Bandwidth, Scheduled bandwidth limit. For example, if your job is configured to use a daytime limit, you would be limited during the day, but not at night. But if you override that, your override setting will continue both day and night, until you go back to your schedule. See the Managing and controlling jobs section for your job type for more information on the Other Job Options.

     

11. Click Next to continue.

12. Double-Take validates that your source and target are compatible. The Summary page displays your options and validation items.

    Errors are designated by a white X inside a red circle. Warnings are designated by a black exclamation point (!) inside a yellow triangle. A successful validation is designated by a white checkmark inside a green circle. You can sort the list by the icon to see errors, warnings, or successful validations together. Click on any of the validation items to see details. You must correct any errors before you can enable your migration. Depending on the error, you may be able to click Fix or Fix All and let Double-Take correct the problem for you. For those errors that Double-Take cannot correct automatically, you will need to modify the source or target to correct the error, or you can select a different target. You must revalidate the selected servers, by clicking Recheck, until the validation check passes without errors.

    Before a job is created, the results of the validation checks are logged to the Double-Take Management Service log on the target.

13. Once your servers have passed validation and you are ready to begin migration, click Finish, and you will automatically be taken to the Manage Jobs page.

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