Storage virtualization is now new wave in IT industry, most of the customers are now migrating to virtualized platform so that they can prepare themself for another big thing, Cloud !
Now when it comes to moving the data from physical storage to virtualized platform, the pain point is how to do a migration with less downtime or no downtime
1) Migration with less downtime: Do the cabling and zoning prior to taking the downtime reflecting the new target pwwn's. Now when the maintenance window is scheduled, shutdown the application using the volume being migrated ( this would clear the SCSI reservation if any). Present the LUN to the virtualization appliance and create the virtual volume out of it and present this to host. For Virtual volume creation - refer the array config guide as applicable.
Now login to host and scan for the new volumes, the path for the volumes may change depending on the OS. Make necessary changes from host perspective so that the application can use the newly presented virtualized LUNs.
2) Migration with no downtime: Migration can be done with no downtime using Vmware Storage vmotion. Present the new virtualised LUN to ESX host and then migrate the physical datastore to virtualised datastore using Storage VMotion.
Now when it comes to moving the data from physical storage to virtualized platform, the pain point is how to do a migration with less downtime or no downtime
1) Migration with less downtime: Do the cabling and zoning prior to taking the downtime reflecting the new target pwwn's. Now when the maintenance window is scheduled, shutdown the application using the volume being migrated ( this would clear the SCSI reservation if any). Present the LUN to the virtualization appliance and create the virtual volume out of it and present this to host. For Virtual volume creation - refer the array config guide as applicable.
Now login to host and scan for the new volumes, the path for the volumes may change depending on the OS. Make necessary changes from host perspective so that the application can use the newly presented virtualized LUNs.
2) Migration with no downtime: Migration can be done with no downtime using Vmware Storage vmotion. Present the new virtualised LUN to ESX host and then migrate the physical datastore to virtualised datastore using Storage VMotion.
