topic Re: Migrations tools and options in Network and Storage Protocols

Migrations tools and options

connoisseur — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 06:03:40 GMT

Hi!

We are running our controllers as hosts to different customers.

We have FAS3270 active-active configuration providing NAS shares over CIFS and separate customers with vFilers.

We have a large amount of windows servers (both 2003 and 2008) that hosts these files today.

And we want to move them to the NAS environment in our FAS3270.

So far we have handled it with Robocopy, and it has worked OK.

But now, we are stuck with two different customer cases.

One is a 2003 server and the other is 2008 and the problem is that robocopy is taking 20-30h to do a final sync, and the customer wont accept that timeframe.

I have now tried out OSSV on the 2008 server and must say it works really good.

But the last part of the migration process is still the most tricky.... moving the share structure... how do you do it?

One customer have 200 shares on their windows fileserver, and doing all those manually is a pain in the b#tt.

1. what tools do you use to move data (Robocopy, OSSV etc)

2. How do you migrate the share structure?

I have found a KB how to export and impport share structure, but that only applys to Windows server (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/125996)

Is there a way to import the shares to our NAS environment?

Re: Migrations tools and options

billshaffer — Thu, 02 May 2013 14:55:41 GMT

For migrating data, I have always used rsync in the unix world. Even very large filesystems give a very quick final sync. Seems to me that there are several rsync ports to windows - you might try one of these to see if you get better performance.

As for importing the shares, I think you're stuck doing it manually. If there was a way to export the existing shares into a text file, there would be a pretty good chance you'd be able to manipulate the data into the ONTAP commands for creating the shares - but I'd have to see it....

Bill

Re: Migrations tools and options

RICCO4400 — Thu, 02 May 2013 15:27:37 GMT

if you have some money to spend, you can use Secure Copy

it's possible to rent a temporary license for that software

May be it'll be faster than Robocopy as it runs in multi thread

the big advantage of the product is the capacity to migrate Windows shares (also user and local group)

We used it for a large project with more than 6000 shares

Regards

Re: Migrations tools and options

radek_kubka — Thu, 02 May 2013 15:34:16 GMT

2. How do you migrate the share structure?

There is a file called cifsconfig_shares with the shares config in it. You can just copy this and then restart CIFS.

Re: Migrations tools and options

billshaffer — Thu, 02 May 2013 15:46:34 GMT

Radek, the OP is migrating from windows to NetApp, so there is no cifsconfig_shares file to copy.

In addition to the cifsconfig_share file (just in case someone else trying to migrate shares from NetApp to NetApp reads this), there is some share information kept in the registry. Look for "options.cifsinternal.share" in the /etc/registry. Only some options are here (umask stuff, at least) - there may be no entry for some shares.

example:

cifsconfig_share:

cifs shares -add "test" "/vol/vol0/etc/log" -comment ""

cifs access "test" S-NONE "nosd"

$ grep options.cifsinternal.share registry

options.cifsinternal.share.umask.test=77

Bill

Re: Migrations tools and options

radek_kubka — Thu, 02 May 2013 15:49:26 GMT

the OP is migrating from windows to NetApp, so there is no cifsconfig_shares file to copy.

yeah, right - apologies for not reading the question properly!

Re: Migrations tools and options

connoisseur — Fri, 03 May 2013 06:42:27 GMT

Ok.. so you telling me if I use SecureCopy I can migrate both files, folder structure AND shares?

From Windows fileserver to NetApp NAS/CIFS?

No need to manually configure the shares on the NAS filer afterwards?

For one customer we are talking about 10TB data and +200 shares.

Re: Migrations tools and options

connoisseur — Fri, 03 May 2013 06:51:35 GMT

Just found this:http://software.ccschmidt.de/readme/netappfiler.txt

I tried these steps, and they work on 2003 servers which has permcopy.

Haven´t found simular on 2008

Re: Migrations tools and options

RICCO4400 — Fri, 03 May 2013 07:06:13 GMT

yes that's right

Re: Migrations tools and options

RICCO4400 — Fri, 03 May 2013 07:11:49 GMT

These manual steps are also correct

you're not required to create one qtree = one share

You can have as many shares you want in a qtree