B200 M4 - Move from 6200 FI to 6454 FI - Windows Server

[eric-bu]

Hi,

We only have 2 Windows servers (AD servers) in our 3 chassis. The rest are ESXi. We are moving over to a 6454 FI and I am wondering what the procedure would be to move these Windows Servers? The ESXi ones will be easy since rebuilding is really quick and straightforward. But a rebuild would not work for these Windows Servers.

Also to note they are all Boot from SAN. Any help that would make this move as smooth as possible would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[Kirk J]

So there is a migration/upgrade (replace one FI at a time) noted at https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/unified_computing/ucs/ucs-manager/GUI-User-Guides/Fabric-Interconnect-Migration/4-0/b_Migrating_from_6200_to_6400/b_Migrating_from_6200_to_6400_chapter_010.html

Do need to make sure you check the requirements as there are some limitations.

The migration method would retain your configurations, so you wouldn't be recreating pools, policies, etc.

If you are trying to fork lift these servers from one UCSM domain to another (not migrating/upgrading hardware), then you will have a lot more work to do.

Obviously, you will want to recreate the policies and config as close to the same in the newer environment.

Depending on whether you will have overlapping L2 space, you may be able to duplicate your various pools such as MAC, UUID, etc.

For things like WWPNs, you may have to manually assign those to the various servers so your BFS luns get correctly assigned/matched.

Typically Windows servers will still boot, but you may have some NIC removing/readding, re-IPing, inside the Windows OS, if MACs have changed.

Please note, a logical config backup from the UCSM, will dump the pools, service profiles, etc, to a xml file.

Kirk...

[eric-bu]

We are not replacing FI's. This is a side by side upgrade. They will both be running at the same time until all blades are moved over the other chassis.