Converting a Physical SQL Server to Virtual

[afoley196]

Hello all,

We have a large SQL server that we would like to virtualize into our datacenter.  I attempted to do this over this weekend, but found that it was going to take 4.5 days to complete.  I was trying to do this over a 100MB MPLS connection.  We're looking at about 3TB of data to migrate.  Before I started the conversion, I stopped all of the SQL services.  This of course takes our databases down.  We cannot be down for 4 days however.  I pretty much have 2 days to get this done.

My question is: Can I leave my databases (Sharepoint) up and running while I do the conversion and then schedule the synchronization of changes when I want to move over to the virtual server? 

It was my understanding that this would not update the database changes.  Is that the case?

Thanks,

T

[vmroyale]

Note: Discussion successfully moved from VMware vSphere Hypervisor to VMware Converter Standalone

[Ethan44]

Hi

Welcome to communities.

Here is same discussion that will help you before planing and execution.

https://communities.vmware.com/thread/108249

[afoley196]

Thanks for this information.  That article talks about allocating memory and CPU on the virtal machine.  My concern is with the ability to p2v the server while it's a fully functional SQL server without losing changes to the databases.

[N0bo]

Well if SQL database  running on SAN you can only convert system /nonshared / drives

Data you won't need to migrate you need only change LUN mapping and attach LUN as physical RDM/s to Virtual Machine .

This is in case you have SAN , but in case those are local drives is not  going to work

[patanassov]

Yes, you can.

Let me give you a brief explanation how scheduled synchronization works: a bitmap driver starts tracking all changed clusters on the disk before the cloning starts. When the time for sync comes, a VSS snapshot is being done on the source volumes, and all the changed clusters are read from that snapshot and transferred.

You can also instruct Converter to stop some services before the final sync, e.g, SQL server and exchange. Thus there will be no lost data from those services' activity.

HTH

Plamen