moving rdm from competitors storage to netapp

[mheimberg]

Hi all

we would like to migrate VMFS-datastores on a competitors storage system to NetApp. With Storage Vmotion that shoul not be a problem - but unfortunately some of the VM have RDM LUNs in use.

Does anybody have an idea how we could / should move those RDM to the NetApp system in a elegant way?

THX

Markus

[radek_kubka]

That's depends on your definition of 'elegant'

Basic question - what kind of data do these RDMs actually keep?

If we are talking here about some apps covered by NetApp SnapManager products (say Exchange), then you can use SnapManager to migrate the data.

If not (or you don't have / use SnapManager), then utilising exisiting backup software & agents to do a 'traditional' backup & restore seems like a feasible way. To make the whole excercise quicker, you can create a share on the NetApp filer & use it as backup staging area (instead of messing with tapes).

Regards,

Radek

[mheimberg]

Hi Radek

>That's depends on your definition of 'elegant'

Good point

>Basic question - what kind of data do these RDMs actually keep?

The RDM is connected to a virtualized file server and contains windows shares and data.

Of course we do migrate cifs-data directly to the netapp, but this VM is in another domain and we do not have multistore in place.
So we have to wait until we can get rid of this multi-domain-structure...

Regards

Markus

[radek_kubka]

OK, if you are dealing with flat files, then robocopy is your friend

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=9d467a69-57ff-4ae7-96ee-b18c4790cffd&displaylang=en

Re multiple domanins:

Is your filer a dual-controller unit? If that's the case then controller1 can join domain1 & controller2 can join domain2 (no need for Multistore licence)

Regards,

Radek

[mheimberg]

>robocopy is your friend

That was what I beared in mind.

But I hoped that there could be a way of "direct-copy", more on a block level...

the other way could be to use the VMWare converter, but that is just an idea...

>Is your filer a dual-controller unit?

nope, single head only. that is sufficient to meet the SLA for file services.

Thank you Radek for your valuable inputs, I really appreciate that.

Regards

Markus