SAP ECC 6 Upgrade to 2008 R2 and Virtualization success/failure stories

[Former Member]

Hi Sap community,

I'm planning the following upgrade on my SAP Ecc 6.0 :

Source CI : physical server on windows 2003 x64 SP2,

Target CI : virtual server under vsphere 5.0 Windows 2008 x64 R2,

Source DB : physical server on windows 2003 x64 SP2, SQL 2005 SP2

Target DB : virtual server on windows 2008 x64 R2, SQL 2008 R2

Target physical boxes are not the same as source..

I've already verified pre-requisites, best practices, upgrade path on notes, forums,etc ..

What I haven't found, are the different experiences (success or failure stories) people had with performances while performing such an upgrade, especially with the path I want to use :

1) P2V the 2 servers

2) Upgrade to W2008 R2

3) Upgrade SQL to SQL 2008 R2

Although technically it works (tested on sandbox) I'm just wondering in a long term and with load, if such a enviroment will run without issues in production.

I know that some of you will advice me to create new clean installs and use "system copy" but I would like to avoid changing my hostnames because of dependencies (with BI, CRM, transport system etc...) UNLESS someone tells me that he experienced the P2V method and lived a nightmare.

My second question would be : for the DB : has someone tested having DB on VMDK disks versus RDM disks.

Thank you

Jorge

[former_member188883 · Accepted solution]

Hi,

What I haven't found, are the different experiences (success or failure stories) people had with performances while performing such an upgrade, especially with the path I want to use : 
1) P2V the 2 servers 
2) Upgrade to W2008 R2 
3) Upgrade SQL to SQL 2008 R2 

Answer to your above 3 questions : approach has been successful. I had done it at 2 places.

My second question would be : for the DB : has someone tested having DB on VMDK disks versus RDM disks. 

Please find more details about VMDK and RDM in the links below. Further more you can have maximum details about your query from the link below.

Hope this answers all your queries.

Regards,

Deepak Kori

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thank you for your reply.

I've already seen that comparison beetween VMDK and RDM. But it not specific to SAP, and refers to esx 3.5 while we are at now a vsphere 5.0

Jorge

[markus_doehr2]

> I know that some of you will advice me to create new clean installs and use "system copy" but I would like to avoid changing my hostnames because of dependencies (with BI, CRM, transport system etc...) UNLESS someone tells me that he experienced the P2V method and lived a nightmare.

Why do you need to change hostnames when you do system copies? You coul still use the same hostname.

If I' migrate to VMWare for the first time I'd always start with a clean install of the OS. The OS may load device drivers of the old system than could make the system unstable. This may show up later under load randomly. We have a few cases where systems behaved indeterminisitic, hang, rebooted for no obvious reasons. After a clean install of the OS and the application those problems were gone.

Not saying this MUST happen, it just can happen (Windows is sometimes a bit... picky) so I'd go for the system copy approach. However, as always, mileage may vary.

Markus

[Former Member]

Thank you Markus for your comment.

I guess it's feasible with system copy, but if I want to prepare my new environnement in advance before the cut-over I have to do it in a "closed" network because I won't be able to have 2 hosts with the same hostnames on a windows domain.

Jorge

[former_member188883]

Hi

I guess it's feasible with system copy, but if I want to prepare my new environnement in advance before the cut-over I have to do it in a "closed" network because I won't be able to have 2 hosts with the same hostnames on a windows domain.

Yes. you are correct with the process.

Regards,

Deepak Kori