Question

Migration of MS Exchange Server from ESXi to AHV via move

  • 27 March 2024
  • 4 replies
  • 73 views

Badge +1

Hi,

how do you think about migration of a single MS Exchange Server incl. its database via Move?

I know that is not recommended but there are some technical facts for?

In the past I’ve migrated a lot of MS SQL servers via Move without problems (migration offline while vm was powered off - virtio drivers were installed in a previous step).

kind regards,

Thomas

 


4 replies

Userlevel 2
Badge +3

Hi Thomas,

 

Although it is not the recommended way, it can definitely work… I did that before. It was a long time ago, as I don’t see much Exchange servers due to M365.

 

Shutting down Exchange before cutover will be helpful, as well as deactivating any AV software.

Badge +1

Hi Bart,

 

thanks for reply. Because we will do the migration/cutover during a downtime (offline) we are able to fall back to the “old” ESXi VM if somewhat will get failed, is’nt it?

 

kind regards, Thomas

 

 

yes, you will be able to fall back to old VM in Vmware.

But I strongly recommend you to simply add node(s) in Nutanix, and after your Exchange cluster is expanded , move mailboxes to Nutanix side.this way first of all ,there will be no downtime required, second is that you can ensure everything is working fine (troubleshoot) before moving all mailboxes to Nutanix side at once.

Badge +1

Update:

Today successfully “moved" Exchange DAG from ESXi to AHV. Offline via Move, all fine.

Regards, Thomas

 

Reply