Environment
PlateSpin Migrate 9.0 +
Situation
A source Windows workload has a lot of data to migrate or is connected to the target via a very slow LAN/WAN connection.
Resolution
Note: the steps below assume the source workload has a relatively small system volume and that the target machine is a VM or physical machine. This process does not apply when utilizing Image targets and only applies when utilising the File-Based migration method. Furthermore, the process outlined below will utilize multiple licenses. If there are any questions or concerns regarding licensing please contact the PlateSpin support team at support@platespin.com.
1. Discover the source workload
2. Discover the target physical machine or target virtual host
3. Configure the Move Workload or Copy Workload job. Ensure that the only volume you are migrating is the system drive (or the system drive and the system reserved boot partition, if migrating Windows Server 2008)
4. When the job completes add additional disks or partitions to the target, equal to the intended size of the target volumes.
5. Ensure the disks or partitions are initialized and given volume labels
6. In the Migrate client refresh the details of the virtual host. If using a physical target, boot it using the ISO again and register it.
7. Right-click on the target machine and select Prepare For Synchronization. Configure the job as appropriate and run it. Note: this step may not be necessary when targeting a physical machine.
8. Refresh details of the source workload
9. Once the Prepare For Synchronization job completes and the source workload is refreshed, drag the source workload onto the prepared target machine. Configure the job as appropriate (ensure the Transfer Scope is set to Server Sync) and run it.
10. Repeat steps 7 - 9 as appropriate until all volumes are migrated
Additional Information
File-Based migrations of Windows workloads have a set time limit of 20 hours, which can be increased up to 24 hours. WinPE has a hard uptime limit of 24 hours, after which the target machine will reboot and cause the job to fail. If the source machine is very large, or is connected to the target via a slow LAN/WAN link, or both, the migration will very likely hit the aforementioned limits; this is especially true if attempting to migrate all volumes at once.