Migrating LUNs used by exchange from one Filer to another

[Sunil_100]

Hi All,

I am currently upgrading my FAS2040 HA pair to a FAS2552.  The FAS 2040 is connected to a DS4243 with SATA disks.  These disks are in a single aggregate that contains a few volumes that holds LUNs connected to exchange.  I have been able to use SnapMirror to copy the volumes from the old filer to the new filer.  However, my concern is about how to cut over Excahnage to use the new FIler.  I am aware that the LUN serial will change.  However, when I tried a test: updating the mirror, then quiescing then breaking.  When I tried to connect I go the following error. 

Disk connect operation on server - MAIL-SRV1 failed for reason

The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error.

Anyone ever attempted a similar process of migrating exchang LUN. I am using Exchange 2013, On Windows Server 2012.  With SnapDrive 7 and SnapManager 7.

[dmauro]

Have you performed consistent backups with SME and then mirrored the correct snapshots over to the destaination? Ideally you did this with SnapManager, so this would ensure consistency.

In general, when you connect lun's which are in the Active File System (AFS) on a snapmirror destination or inside a (SME) snapshot of the snapmirror destination, the lun has the following VSS flags on it:

- readonly

- Hidden

- No default Drive Letter

- possibly shadow copy.

VSS framework is responsible for removing those flags only from the Active File system on the source, just after the backup.

The flags therefore remain set inside the snapshot (they are not set on destination volume AFS, but that would be inconsistent and you should not mount that).

So, if we agree you need to mount the lun inside the consistent SME snapshot of the destination, then Next you need to clear the flags manually or connect the lun inside the snapshot using SnapoDrive.

SnapDrive will do all this for you, if you chose the correct lun path inside the snapshot. It will also break the snapmirror for you, so no need to do that manually.

hope that helps,

Domenico