Migrating Advanced Server Data from One Local Device to Another

Views:

Summary

The following article describes the steps to replace an AROS data drive that is reaching its capacity. The data on the drive is still live and accessible, but must move to a new device while preserving the ability to continue incremental backups, restore operations and BMR. This procedure moves Advanced Server data to a new device for continued operation. It requires disabling the Advanced Server for backup, restore, and iSCSI operations until the necessary data moves. This procedure can only move data around an existing Advanced Server for purposes of local device maintenance. This procedure cannot move volumes between Advanced Servers, and is not valid for migrating all data to a new or replacement Advanced Server as the BEX software installation directory may have iSCSI and condense state needs to live with the drives.

Symptoms

Advanced Server data can be very large. Utilities may not copy the data properly, resulting in inflated disk usage. You must ensure the data format is preserved for continuous backup and restore operations.

QUESTION - Is this still valid, or can it be archived?

Resolution

Background

Advanced Server stores data within NTFS sparse files. These files have very few tools available to properly handle copy operations that preserve the space and structure of the original. The BEX Copy function copies sparse files correctly, and effectively moves large Advanced Server data repositories between devices.

In order to move Advanced Server data to a new device, you must completely remove the Advanced Server from production use. While the data movement is taking place, it must not perform a backup, restore, DP (Archive to media), or any operations that require the use of iSCSI, such as IA map, Virtualization, BMR, etc.

This procedure only applies to moving all data off of a device so that the old device can be removed or reused. The new drive with the copied data will take the place of the old drive. This procedure cannot be used to move partial data sets - partial moves are not supported as there is no way to ensure the result can be used for any new backup or restore operations. The moved data will not be known by the master server catalog, and will effectively be inaccessible.

It is strongly suggested that you use the On-demand verification feature to verify the original data. You do not need to test every snapshot, however testing the latest snapshot of each server and device is highly suggested. If you have any problems with the existing backup sets, consider repairing these issues prior to the data copy, or do not perform this procedure and instead run new base backups to your new device. Note: the BEX Copy function will copy all data regardless of its state, and does not check the data it attempts to move.

Prior to starting the Advanced Server data move procedure, perform the following:

Stop the BEX Advanced Protection Manager, or nibbler service on the Advanced Server. This will prevent new backups, restore operations, and condense operations from running.
Stop the Starwind service on the Advanced Server. This will prevent any iSCSI operations to this server including Virtualizations, BMR, restore, etc.
It is highly suggested to mark any Advanced Server attached tape library as off-line. This will prevent the server from being used for tape backups including DP, or Archive to Media operations.
The BEX CMagent Service must remain running. Bex Copy will use this functionto copy your data.
The new device must be large enough to accommodate the data copy, and should be the same size or larger than the original.

Procedure

The following procedure uses the E drive as the original AROS data device. The new device will be mounted to the W drive for the data copy, then to the E drive for replacement.

On the AROS server:

Stop the BEX Advanced Protection Manager, or nibbler service.
Stop the Starwind service.
The BEX CMagent Service must remain running. The Autoupdate service may remain running but is not required.
Mount your new device to a windows drive letter, for example, the W drive.

From the Management Console / Master server:

Ensure the Advanced Server will not be used to run DP, or archive to media jobs by disabling the nibbler process on the Advanced Server as indicated above. If backup jobs attempt to run, the tape library may unnecessarily load tapes, and must be moved back to slots later. It is suggested that you do not use the Advanced Server as a device server for other backups during this data move. To avoid conflicts, you can either hold any jobs needing that resource in the Job Monitor, or you can navigate to Configure > Devices and set all of the Advanced Server tape drives or SAN paths to the down state.
In the BEX management console, select Copy from the top row of tabs to build a Copy job. On the source pane, navigate to the AROS server and select the drive to move data from, for example, the E drive. On the destination pane, navigate to the same AROS server and select the destination device, for example, the W drive. Save and run this job.
When the job completes, review the source and destination devices. Both devices should contain nearly the same amount of data.

From the AROS server:

Swap the drive letters for these devices. Using the drive letters from the procedure above, move the E drive to an unused drive letter, such as Z. Then move the copied data drive to replace this by changing the W drive to be the new E drive. Perform these steps through the Windows Server Manager, Disk Management application. Right-click on the drive, select Change Drive Letter and Paths :, then remove the existing drive letter mapping and replace with the new value. In some cases, the original data drive, for example, the E drive, cannot be unmounted or have its drive letter changed. This is usually due to the device being busy. You can first try to stop all BEX processes, virus scanning, defragmentation, etc. on the device. If you previously ran a block-level or image backup of the device, you may need to clear the change journal on that device before it will become free for unmount. In some cases, a reboot may help.
Start the BEX Advanced Protection Manager, or nibbler service.
Start the Starwind service.

When complete, the new drive contains a copy of the original data, and the device mounts at the location of the original.