How to reduce downtime during server migration and control risks

Server migration is a common task. To ensure service continuity, We must minimize downtime and avoid risks.

1. Understand the attributes between systems

Although IT employees may not want to acknowledge this, some employees may not fully understand how a solution works in an established migration strategy. Take Exchange Server as an example. Changing to an Exchange Server can be done in several ways, from a single user's simple email transfer operation to a third-party solution, such as transferring from the entire Server to a new domain (if necessary) are covered.

The challenge is that such migration will take Exchange (Outlook WebAccess/App, Outlook Anywhere and ActiveSync) to enterprise-level servers such as Good Technologies, BlackBerry, Lync, and mobile technology packages) the local migration system has an impact. Unlike the methods that take these ecosystem solutions into account during email server migration, you can quickly export all mobile users. However, you cannot fully understand all peripheral systems, and your target migration system may depend on these peripheral systems or depend on each other to bring you into the nightmare of real migration.

2. Know what migration is required

A solution is composed of one or more components involving one or more servers or hardware resources. The correct steps in the migration process ensure that you first understand the working principle of the solution and the proportion of the migration part in the migrated system before starting the actual migration. The fax server is the best example of this solution type, because many enterprises need physical hosts to ensure correct operations. If you do not ensure that the HBA is compatible with the new hardware/virtualization platform you are trying to migrate, the best migration plan will be compromised.

3. Understand what to migrate

Once you calculate the components that must be migrated from the current platform, you should fully analyze the components you may need to migrate or do not need to migrate. There will always be some system components that do not need to be migrated to the new platform, but in order to minimize the possibility and complexity of downtime, it may be necessary to migrate the past.

For example, Windows system status information may require appropriate tools to migrate from one hardware platform to another. If this information can be migrated, the complexity of the new server configuration can be greatly reduced, at least from the perspective of Windows systems and software.

4. Set expectations and stick to goals

All users want to migrate without downtime. However, unfortunately, this zero downtime dream is generally impossible in the real migration world. Even if no visible downtime occurs during physical migration (for example, email migration in Exchange or Notes ), you still need to give your employees some breathing space to cope with unexpected emergencies. The status information and binary of the migration system are carefully planned and prepared before migration to minimize the possibility of downtime. However, eliminating downtime during all major hardware migration processes is just a expectation and may be difficult to implement.

Set a reasonable number of downtime to ensure that everyone from the IT staff to the user knows when the downtime may occur and how long the downtime will last. If such downtime is unacceptable to users, you need to explain the reasons for this and the catastrophic consequences that may be caused to the system.

5. Use the correct tool

Migration often has unexpected results because you do not know the detailed rules. An example: many tools for migrating data from a local physical machine to a virtual machine require data to remain static during the migration process (only for the database administrator to process ). For SQL or such servers, this means that the database must be offline during the migration process, because it faces the main risk of data loss. A tool for migrating physical machines to virtual machines is also a one-way migration from physical servers to virtual machines. This is a restriction on operations. If your migration is only from a physical machine to a virtual machine, it is not helpful if you try to migrate to another physical machine. If this problem is discovered only after migration, the application cannot reach your expectation in the new environment.

Select a tool library based on your needs-a typical practice is to combine local tools with third-party tools to ensure that you can securely execute migration and implement it as planned. By combining these five tips, you can ensure that you do not miss out. You can migrate data to the new platform with minimal downtime during migration.