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April 12th, 2018 07:00

Can I use PowerPath for Windows to migrate data from/to RDM's on a VM?

We replaced our primary storage array and have migrated almost everything over to it but I have 1 VM that has become a big headache. I work in a hospital and this VM is the Image storage server for our PACS environment. The vendor had some strange requirements when this was set up a very long time ago. The VM has 17 1.2TB, Physical Compatibility RDM's attached to it. When you log on to the server, other than the C: drive, it only has an I: drive, which is one of the RDM's. The other 16 RDM's are nested inside of the I: drive and labeled V1-V16.

The vendor wasn't much interested in helping us migrate the data, since we're getting rid of them, in favor of a new PACS vendor. So, we attempted the migration ourselves. (After a lot of testing so see how it would handle the nested drives) We opted to use Open Migrator for the migration since it just takes 2 quick reboots. Our local EMC team also agreed that was the best option. Long story short, we were able to get all but 4 of the drives migrated. Apparently a bug caused the OM filter driver to become detached from some drives along the way.

Radiology rebooted the server without notifying me, thereby completing the migration over to the new array. So now I have a situation where the drives are split between the 2 arrays. We've contemplated presenting all new RDM's and using EMCopy or RoboCopy, but with the number of files we're dealing with, I think we'd be looking at a longer than desired downtime for the tool to crawl the entire file system looking for deltas to copy.

Now that I've given you probably way more info that you want or need, on to my actual question. We run PowerPath VE on all of our ESXi boxes. Is there any reason I cannot install PowerPath for Windows on the VM, and use PPME to do the migration? I've installed it on a test box, and it seems like it would work.(All the commands work and show up proper disk info and device ID's) ButI have yet to test a migration that way.

Any thoughts or suggestions.

BTW, the old array is a VMAX 10K, the new array is a VMAX All-Flash

Thank you

86 Posts

April 12th, 2018 14:00

Strictly speaking it's not supported to run PowerPath for Windows inside a VM with RAW devices from an ESXi server.

I have never tested running PPME either in a VM. Maybe the RPQ will let you run it.

What's stopping you from migrating the last 4 x LUNs using Open Migrator? You should be able to re-attach and do the last 4 drives?

Regards, Michel.

88 Posts

April 12th, 2018 10:00

Hi Bimmer - please submit an RPQ and the team will take a look at it. If you need help submitting an RPQ please contact your Dell EMC account team.

Bob Lonadier

PowerPath Product Manager

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