C.4 Checklist for Windows Clusters Migration Using Semi-Automated Migration Workflow

Task

Description / Steps

  1. Prepare your Windows cluster migration environment.

Before you configure Windows clusters for migration, ensure that your environment meets all the prerequisites for migration and that you understand the conditions for migrating cluster workloads. See Section 22.0, Preparing for Migration of Windows Clusters.

  1. Discover source cluster nodes and power down the passive cluster node.

  1. Use the PlateSpin Migrate client to discover the active and passive nodes of the source cluster. In the PlateSpin environment, the discovered active node is listed with its cluster name; the discovered passive node is listed with its host name.

    For information about discovering source nodes, see Section 19.6.1, Workload Discovery in the Migrate Client.

  2. Power down the passive cluster node.

  1. Prepare PlateSpin ISO Image.

  1. If you have not already done so, download the PlateSpin ISO image from the PlateSpin Migrate software download page.

    See Section H.1, Downloading the PlateSpin ISO Images.

  2. Prepare the PlateSpin ISO image.

    See Section H.2, Preparing the PlateSpin ISO Image for Target Registration and Discovery.

  3. Save the PlateSpin ISO image to a location that is accessible to the target VMware environment, such as a datastore on the VMware cluster.

  1. Set Up VMware Tools for the target nodes.

See Section 29.3.3, Setting Up VMware Tools for the Target Workload.

NOTE:This option might be unsuccessful for workloads with UEFI firmware. After migration, verify that the VMware Tools installation completed successfully by reviewing the Job Steps after the migration. Look for the message Installing Tools (Completed). If it failed, you can install the VMware Tools manually.

  1. Register each target VM node with PlateSpin Server.

PlateSpin ISO registers the target VM with the PlateSpin Migrate server and performs an inventory of the machine to collect information about it, such as the amount of RAM, number of cores and processors, storage disks, and NICs. See Section 18.5, Registering and Discovering Details for Target VMs on Virtual Hosts with PlateSpin ISO.

  1. Migrate the active node to the target VM using the X2P migration workflow.

Use the PlateSpin Migrate Client to do the following:

  1. Start an X2P migration job with the active node as the migration source and the virtual machine VM1 as target.

  2. Configure the migration to ensure the following:

    • The source cluster shared disks (quorum, data) are migrated to the passive target node RDM disks.

    • Source node is shut down post migration.

  3. Run the migration.

NOTE:If the migration stalls at the Configure Target Machine step, see Section C.5.2, Migration Job Stalls or Boots to the PlateSpin ISO Boot Prompt.

  1. Migrate the passive node to the target VM using the X2P migration workflow.

Use the PlateSpin Migrate Client to do the following:

  1. Start an X2P migration job with the passive node as the migration source and the virtual machine VM2 as target.

  2. Configure the migration to ensure the following:

    • The source cluster shared disks (quorum, data) are NOT Migrated to the passive target node RDM disks.

    • Source node is shut down post migration.

      NOTE:Manually shut down the source passive nodes if they do not automatically shut down when Shut Down is selected for the post-migration end state of a Windows Server 2016 Cluster.

  3. Run the Migration.

NOTE:If the migration stalls at the Configure Target Machine step, see Section C.5.2, Migration Job Stalls or Boots to the PlateSpin ISO Boot Prompt.

  1. Post migration tasks

  • Verify that cluster services and resources are online and can be failed over to each node in the cluster

  • If you did not set up VMware Tools to install during the migration, or if the automatic install failed, you can manual install VMware tools on each cluster VM node.