Can you move to a different Hyper Visor without changing storage?

aando
aando used Ask the Experts™
on
I have a Cybernetics SAN for my storage with a Dell R910 running XEN Server as the hypervisor. I want to put in a Windows Server 2012 R2 running Hyper-V and migrate AWAY from the XEN Server head unit. What is the easiest way to do this?
Comment
Watch Question

Do more with

Expert Office
EXPERT OFFICE® is a registered trademark of EXPERTS EXCHANGE®
View Solutions Only
Philip ElderTechnical Architect - HA/Compute/Storage
Commented:
It's as easy as binding your new Hyper-V server via iSCSI Initiator to the existing LUNs. Some security settings may need to be tweaked to allow that to happen.

Converting the VMs from Xen to Hyper-V would be the next challenge.

Virtual Machine Manager and System Center P2V process can be used to convert the VMs.

For us, we'd be using StorageCraft ShadowProtect to back up the VM(s) and restore them using the product's Hardware Independent Restore feature to inject the necessary Hyper-V drivers.

Once the VM has booted we'd set up our networking, clean up any Xen related devices, and remove their tools.
VMware and Virtualization Consultant
Fellow 2018
Expert of the Year 2017
Commented:
The storage will have to be formatted, to what can be used by the Hypervisor, e.g. Windows uses NTFS, VMware uses VMFS, but if you have VMs on NFS, they could be used by XEN and VMware.

But you will need ro convert the VMs, to ensure they have the correct virtual hardware for the Hypervisor.
aando

Author

Commented:
I have to use steps from both of these as well as a secondary head unit and storage to make this happen. Very lengthy process.

Do more with

Expert Office
Submit tech questions to Ask the Experts™ at any time to receive solutions, advice, and new ideas from leading industry professionals.

Start 7-Day Free Trial