I was once told a story that when
VMware wanted to P2V so many thousand systems, they went to PlateSpin
for help.
History of PlateSpin
Founded 2003, bought by Novell in
February 2008, 2011 transferred to NetIQ (after Novell's acquisition
by Attachmate.)
The below are handy in one place
notes from:
What is PlateSpin Migrate?
PlateSpin Migrate delivers the fastest
and most efficient anywhere-to-anywhere
migrations, using proprietary block-based transfer protocols and
Server Sync technology.
Features
Integrated
testing for safer migrations
Live
transfer: “… without
taking the source servers offline or having to reboot.”
Server
sync: “…
test the workload in the new
location while
continuing to run the source, and then perform a final
synchronization before cutting over the workload.”
Migration
speed and scalability: “… up to 40
simultaneous workload migrations.”
Multi-platform
support: (see below) “... hardware configurations and
vendors with a driver database of 55'000
drivers and the ability to add your own custom drivers, and
imaging technologies.”
Competitors
Vizioncore vConverter
Double-Take MOVE
Technical Specifications
System
Requirements: Windows Server 2003 (.NET 3.5 SP1 & IIS
6 or higher) or Windows Server 2008 (.NET 3.5 SP1), 1 GHz CPU, 2 GB
RAM, 10 GB disk, MSSQL 2005 Express or existing local or remote MSSQL
2005.
Supported
Server OSs: Novell OES2, Windows NT4 / 2000 / 2003 (32 and
64-bit) / 2008 (32 and 64-bit) / 2008R2, SLES (32 and 64-bit), Red
Hat Linux (32 and 64-bit), Sun Solaris (SPARC)
Supported
Desktop OSs: Windows 2000 / XP / Vista (32 and
64-bit)
Supported
Hypervisors: ESX/ESXi, Hyper-V, SLES with Xen, XenServer,
Solaris Containers
Supported
Hardware Vendors (Standalone and Blade): Cisco, Dell,
Fujitsu, HP, IBM, Sun, Unisys, and more
From the FAQ
Q: How
long does a typical migration job take to complete?
A:
The timing of workload migrations with PlateSpin Migrate can vary
depending on several external factors such as network availability
and the size of the workload. However PlateSpin Migrate has been
specifically engineered to be the most robust migration tool on the
market in terms of speed and scalability.
Q: Does PlateSpin Migrate
support multi-pathing?
A:
It depends...
Q: Does PlateSpin Migrate
support NIC
teaming?
A:
Yes, PlateSpin Migrate supports NIC teaming for source Windows
workloads, but the NICs will not be teamed on the target side.
Q: Does PlateSpin Migrate
support Windows
Clusters?
A:
Yes, PlateSpin Migrate is the only workload migration product on the
market to support migration of Windows clusters in a non-disruptive
manner.
Q: … I want to perform an
offline migration from a remote
location)?
A:
A user should be able to boot the source with the ISO remotely via
PXE. Along those same lines, if the issue is the lack of a physical
optical drive, we have a process to create a bootable USB thumb drive
as well.
From the “View Product Overview
Video”
“… After using the PlateSpin
Recon to plan the project ...”
“… With capacity management
information from PlateSpin Recon, they kept the new datacenter
running optimally, by continuing to
move their workloads wherever fit best ...”
From the “View a Product Demo
Video”
Fig. 1: PlateSpin Migrate Actions
Fig. 2: PlateSpin Migrate Transfer
Method
Take Control:
Is a cold migration process, this
involves shutting down the source machine in order to migrate
the workload, this is usually used
for Linux and legacy Windows NT servers (but could be used to
migrate Windows 2000/2003/ …)
Live Transfer:
Is supported by Windows 2000 and
above.
> File:
Use for low transactional servers,
like webservers and fileservers, not recommended for database or
highly transaction servers.
> Block:
Can be used for database servers
and highly transactional servers.
> Snapshot:
Windows 2003 and above, it is a file based transfer option, but can
take advantage of VSS which
allows Migrate to copy SQL
databases and Exchange
databases without needing to
stop the services.
Can schedule!
Additional Note
From: User Guide - PlateSpin Migrate 9.1 (April 20,2012)
"PlateSpin Migrate licenses are sold on a per-workload basis (doesn't matter how many PlateSpin Migrate servers you have.) A license entitles you to an unlimited number of migrations on a specific number of workloads. With every migration, a workload unit of the license is assigned to either the source or target. The machine that has the workload unit assigned to it can subsequently be migrated an unlimited number of times. Each time a workload is assigned, the Workloads remaining number is decreased."
Fig.3 PlateSpin Migrate Workload License Assignment
Additional Note
From: User Guide - PlateSpin Migrate 9.1 (April 20,2012)
"PlateSpin Migrate licenses are sold on a per-workload basis (doesn't matter how many PlateSpin Migrate servers you have.) A license entitles you to an unlimited number of migrations on a specific number of workloads. With every migration, a workload unit of the license is assigned to either the source or target. The machine that has the workload unit assigned to it can subsequently be migrated an unlimited number of times. Each time a workload is assigned, the Workloads remaining number is decreased."
Fig.3 PlateSpin Migrate Workload License Assignment
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