PlateSpin Migrate 8 and P2V of Cluster

Using PlateSpin version 8 to P2V a Active/Active Cluster?

If your looking at virtualizing your infrastructure P2V of standalone systems is straightforward, usually a good idea to defrag drives prior to a P2V but not always essential. Just keep in mind that each of the major vendors P2V tool-sets has different supported operating systems and scenarios (ever tried P2V of NT 4.0?).

On to a simple 2-node cluster, whether it’s for file, print or SQL, clustered servers present a challenge to those in the middle of a wider P2V project. PlateSpin Migrate 8 officially only supports P2V of Active-Passive 2-node clusters.

But what about Active-Active? Here are the steps we followed to ensure it worked in a production environment, using VMWare vSphere 5 as target virtual infrastructure:

1. Move all clustered resources to one single node, make note of drive letters for shared disks (e.g, spooler service). Effectively creating an Active/Passive cluster.
2. Ensure empty Node is offline, will shut it down later
3. P2V the active node by its name, include ALL disks
4. Add prod NIC to the P2V image, ensure the correct IP is entered if static, but DO NOT connect the NIC!!!
5. Close down the active physical node
6. Close down the inactive physical node
7. Now you can activate the production NIC on the P2V
8. If the cluster disks are missing, within Disk Management, add in additional disks with previous drive letters. You should find the additional disks as vmdks
9. Start Cluster specific services from Services.msc
10. Browse to Cluster Manager from Computer Management, it should advise of activating cluster. Do so.
11. All cluster resources should come online, showing one dead node