(Sims Server) Veeam restore Physical to Virtual using Export disk contents as VHDX

[Jaan]

Hi all,

 

Long story short, the physical SIMs server is being retired and there are talks of going hosted Sims. We're not quite there yet.

 

We have a hyper-V setup and SIMs server is the only physical left. I thought of using Microsoft P2V and having to stop the relevant services (SQL etc), but we use Veeam and i had an idea.

 

It goes like this;

 

•Power off physical SIMs server after it's friday back up. (maybe next week lol)

•Export the backup to VHDX using Veeam's "restore to VHDX" feature.

•Create a New VM same name same IP and attach the exported VHDX.

•Power on the "New" virtual Sims server.

 

Am I mad? Have you guys ever done this?

 

Any input would be really grateful. I'm thinking that i could just power up the physical if it goes up the creek!

 

Cheers all.

 

EDIT: like this: Inside Technologies | Veeam Endpoint Backup: Restore Client as Virtual Machine

 

But with a sprinkle of Capita

Edited June 15, 2018 by Jaan

[MartinT]

Use Disk2VHD, a Microsoft utility. It's exactly what we used to virtualise our physical SIMS server. Worked a treat.

 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/disk2vhd

Edited June 15, 2018 by MartinT

[Jaan]

Use Dsk2VHD, a Microsoft utility. It's exactly what we used to virtualise our physical SIMS server. Worked a treat.

 

Did you stop the SQL services or cross your fingers and let P2V do it's thing?

[supportman]

We paid Capita to set all this up, was about a grand but they created a nice new virtualized server and migrated all the data from the old physical one.

[Jaan]

A year on (almost) and i've still not got round to this!

 

Anybody done this recently?

[NetworkServices]

I've never done it with SIMS specifically but I have used Disk2VHD numerous times in the past to facilitate virtualisation of old physical servers. I don't recall ever having any issues.

[MartinT]

We used Disk2VHD on our SIMS server and didn't stop any services. It came up perfectly as a VM in Hyper-V.

[PotNoodleTech]

Not used it on a SIMS server but have used Disk2VHD on several others and it worked 100% each time and was really easy.

 

All I would say is make sure it's set not to auto power off / on VMs - do the copy and do the powering off of the OLD Server and powering on the new VM at a time of your convenience.

[Domino]

When you're doing a P2V you'll also want to remove the redundant hardware from Windows: Cleaning up after a P2V conversion - Virtual Wiki