Use vmwarevm to migrate existing servers and networks (1)

Many enterprises run multiple servers due to historical reasons or other factors, such as multiple Netware servers and multiple Windows NT servers in the telecom department. In many education departments, run multiple Netware servers to save files. After years of use, these servers have already reached the "dangerous" situation-their hard disks and CPUs are not optimistic. However, because most of the data is in FOXBASE, Foxpro, or other formats, it cannot or is difficult to migrate to the new network. To save the data, you need to upgrade these servers. Previously, the server configuration was relatively low. If you use the currently configured server to "one-to-one" upgrade the previous server, it will cause a great waste of resources. For current servers (P4 3.0, 2 GB memory, 80 GB to several hundred GB hard disks), one server is equivalent to dozens of servers in the past. Is there a way to "integrate" these servers into one server? This is the topic to be discussed in this article: How to migrate servers in the network.

We can use the "Partitioning server technology" provided by virtual machines to run multiple "virtual servers" on a high-end server at the same time. These virtual servers are no different from the real servers. The use of the partitioning server has multiple advantages: first, the many machines formed by the partitioning system are in the same physical server, rather than scattered around, so it is much easier to manage. Second, purchasing large servers to separate them will be cheaper than buying many small servers. In this way, we have implemented the "many-to-one" upgrade.

During server migration, VMWare gsx server (or VMware ESX Server) is used. Microsoft Virtual PC, vmware workstation, and Symantec ghostenterprise edition are also required. In this article, we will first introduce the use of the relevant software, and then introduce the migration process and method.
After the migration, migrate multiple original Netware, Windows NT, and Windows 2000 servers to a server running the VMware gsx server and run the original service on the VM of the VMware gsx server.

############### 1. Migration basics ####################
1-1 answers
① Why should we migrate the server?
The migration server can save management, maintenance, and upgrade costs, while saving a lot of space for users. Because the previous NetWare server or Windows NT Server is very large ". The current server volume is much smaller than before. At the same time, we use one server to replace many previous servers, which can save a lot of space. In the telecom data center, the cost of space is relatively high. In addition, the servers migrated to the VMware gsx server or ESX Server Virtual Machine have a unified "virtual hardware resource" server, unlike the previous server, there are many different hardware resources (such as different Motherboard chipset, different NICs, different hard disks, different raid cards, and different video cards ). In this way, when you upgrade these virtual servers, you only need to directly copy the corresponding files to the new server, and run VMware gsx server or ESX server on the new server to achieve the upgrade.

② Advantages after migration
The migrated servers can be managed on a unified interface. In addition, for the migrated servers, the tools provided by VMware can be used when these servers are shut down due to various faults, automatically switch to another same virtual server on the network, so that the service is not interrupted.
At the same time, the most important thing is that after the migration, you can save a lot of resources, including space resources, management resources, and management costs.

③ Tools required for Migration
Migration of the original server mainly involves using various tools and software to store the hard disk on the original server (because the data is stored on the hard disk) "Mirror" to the virtual machine provided by VMware gsx server or VMware ESX Server, and "replace" the hard disk and NIC Driver of the original server in the virtual machine. You only need to install the corresponding driver in the virtual server and set the same address (such as TCP/IP address) as the original server. After restarting the virtual server, the virtual server can work on behalf of the original server (set the network card of the host to be used by the virtual machine, and insert the network cable to the network interface location of the original server to be migrated. During migration, the following tools are required:
VMware p2v ASSISTANT: a migration tool provided by VMware to migrate Windows NT/2000/2003 computers to the vmwarevm. during migration, p2v provides boot discs, this boot disc is used to start the computer you want to migrate, and upload all the hard disk data on the "Source" computer to p2v and directly create a hard disk image file used by the virtual machine, at the same time, "replace" the hard disk driver of the image file in the virtual machine.
This tool cannot migrate hosts other than Windows, such as Netware and Linux. In addition, this tool does not support Nic or hard disk of some servers, and there are not many hosts that can be migrated. Third-party tools and software are required.
Symantec ghostenterprise edition: creates image files and restores image files to virtual machines. It is used to make the hard disk of the server to be migrated into an image file through the network, and then restore the image file to the virtual machine through the network. This software only mirrors the server hard disk to be migrated and restores it to the Virtual Machine (here, the virtual machine is used like a physical host ).

④ Precautions for use after migration
If a Windows host is migrated, because a Windows host uses the TCP/IP address and the computer name to identify the identity, after the migration, as long as the TCP/IP address of each virtual machine does not conflict, you can use the same Nic on the physical host. If you migrate a Netware server because Netware has a license agreement, if the original NetWare server is installed using the same license agreement but is connected to a different Hub (or switch, the original NetWare networks are separated from each other. After the migration to a physical host, if the license agreement is the same, you cannot use the NIC of the same physical host. You can only use different Nic of the physical host and connect it to the original network. If you only want to retain the original data and retain one or two virtual workstations (using vmware workstation or virtual PC as the workstation), you can use the virtual network card provided by VMware.