Doubletake Move: Migrations that move you!

Doubletake Move: Migrations that move you!

Could this software avert a 'Polenta disaster'?

(Above: Polenta disguised as Potato)

I can think of just two situations in life that never fail to have me reaching for a sick bag, every time.

The first case, is when I'm expecting to be served up an oversized portion of delicious sautéed potato, when I discover (all too late) that what I've actually been given is really cleverly disguised deep fried Polenta. Oh and the other one is when a customer phones in and asks you to perform a Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 hardware migration.

So you can imagine the double gag reflex induced when we got a call asking for no less than TWO Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 migrations. One in London, the other in..... Scotland.

Lets just stop to think about what this means for a minute. Your customer is entrusting the entire digital assets of not one but two remote offices - all to you. SBS setups are traditionally single domain, so you can't really take them down without causing some sort of office disruption. You can already sense the lynch mob of impatient staff looking over your shoulder, asking 'are we there yet?'. You are not that keen on going to Scotland to perform this risky stunt either. You recall the movie 'Braveheart'.

What do you do? You can't chicken out - your customer needs you. You can't fail - you need your customer (and your internal organs). It's a bit like meeting the girl of your dreams, and after it's been going amazingly well for 6 months, she asks you to repair the priceless super fragile 1930's mother of perl necklace that her late 'ma entrusted to her. She reminds you it's irreplaceable & emotionally sacred. This is absolute trust. This is absolute pressure.

Or as I like to think - 'A Polenta disaster waiting to happen'

Needless to say, on slogging through the reams of Microsoft TechNet 'best practice' documentation - worst fears were confirmed. Migrating would be a horribly long, painful drawn out process. Install fresh copy of SBS on new server, next back up the old server up, finally restore onto the new server. Sound easy? Well - there is a checklist as long as the worlds longest Spaghetti (503 feet just in case you were interested) - detailing exactly at what time, what steps are required to put the server into what correct state for the backup and restore. And remember, while the backup runs, no one can use the old server. Likewise, when you are busy restoring, still no one can use the old server. Once you finally have the restore 'done', you then have to handle all the issues to do with the changed hardware platform. Just installing SBS takes a good half day. This was looking like one 'hell' of a weekend.

And so we stumbled upon Doubletakes Move product. On paper, this product claimed to perform nothing short of a minor miracle.

1) It would enable us to migrate everything, including all customer data, from the old server to the new server, without having to actually be on site, and without having to ask anyone to log out of anything.
2) When the migration was completed, we could then wait, for up to 30 days, for a convenient maintenance window to complete the last phase of the switch.
3) During this 'post migration' time, any email, file or database activity on the old server, would continue to be real time synced with the new server-to-be.
4) When it's time to go, a button is pushed (again, remotely) to 'cut over' to the new server. The migration completes, The old server shuts down. The new server reboots.
5) When the new server comes back up - it's job done. If done late at night - who's to know anything ever happened?

Naturally, being utter skeptics, we scoffed at these dubiously impressive claims - they were quite obviously too good to be true. I could almost smell the Polenta.

So we requested a trial copy. We set up a new SBS server, messed around with it, added some user accounts, created some mailboxes, sent some emails, shared some folders. Just to be awkward, we used an old Supermicro server - so probably the most obscure hardware platform you can get.

Next we set up a server to migrate over to - this was a brand new Dell - so pretty much the most challenging mix of hardware as we could muster. We set up VMWare ESX vSphere on the Dell, and decided (just to make it even more interesting), we would migrate the SBS installed on the Supermicro, over to a VM Guest sitting inside VMware Sphere on the Dell.

We set this up, installed DoubleTake Move on a 'control' workstation at a remote location outside the server room - set the old server as the source, set the new server as the target. Then we hit the big 'GO' button.

Above: Preparing and migrating servers is a simple three step process

 After about an hour, we were asked to 'cut over' - the final stage of the process that sees the migration complete. We thought we would up our work rate on the old server, just to test.

Another hour passed, and we decided it was finally time to test the cut over. We hit the switch, and the old server powered off. The VM Guest rebooted.

We could not believe our eyes. Sitting in our little Guest OS, was our 'old Supermicro' SBS. Everything had worked as advertised - every last minute update on the old server, was there. This was a truly moving moment. There was no Polenta. We had performed what can only be described as remote SBS teleportation - with migration downtime reduced to a few minutes and a single reboot. Quite honestly, it was so impressive, it brought a tear to my eye.

Needless to say, that when the time came to 'perform' the customers live server migration - it was so un-eventful there was risk of complete and utter boredom setting in. After the 5 minutes it took to get the migration started, we decided to waltz out for a spot of lunch. When we returned a couple of hours later - the migration had long since completed, and no-one was any the wiser. After the cut over to the new server, there was nothing more for us to do. Staff were left in somewhat of a puzzling conundrum of wanting to seem impressed, but then, as nothing had actually seemed to happen, how could anyone get impressed about - nothing?

We made a note that for the next one, we should perhaps run around a bit, juggle DVDs and work up some big sweat patches under our arms.

At least my chronic SBS migration nausea syndrome is cured.

The condition has well and truly - moved on.