Best way to migrate WFE from hyper v to a network load balance cluster ?

Question

we have a 3 server farm with 1 web front end and clustered SQL server , we want to move the WFE from hyper v to 2 physical load balanced cluster , what would be the best way forward ? is hyperv's virtual to phyical migration approach recommended or setting up a new farm is the best available option ?

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Guneet Kalra

Answer 1

Hyper-V or Virtual Machine Manager do not offer tools for V2P conversion (only P2V or V2V is available).

I would recommend if you are already running a farm to add 2 more WFEs on which you will implement the load balancing, reconfigure your DNS so your clients will access the load balanced WFEs and then decomission the virtualized WFE running in hyper-v.

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Marek Chmel, WBI Systems (MCTS, MCITP, MCT, CCNA)
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Answer 2

Leave the existing farm running and deploy the physical servers as additional servers in the existing farm (join the farm). Configure the new servers completely and have the network load balancing setup after the SharePoint setup. Once all this is done it is a simple matter of changing the DNS record that points to your web application on the original front end server to the new load balancer ip address. This is the easiest method that will not have an impact for your users as they can continue to work while the new servers are being setup and configured.

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Dirk Van den Berghe

Answer 3

I read somewhere in the MSDN documenetation that for sharepoint there should be consistancy on farm layers being virtualized , i.e either all servers in the WFE layer should be physical or all should be virtual.

Adding 2 physical servers to the virtualized WFE layer would not create problem ? have u seen such farm config running ?

 

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Guneet Kalra

Answer 4

all servers in the same layer should be the same either physical or virtualized, but in this case the end scenario will be that way. Once you switch DNS the virtual server will not be used by users and only the physical servers will. It is possible to use a hybrid scenario in the same layer, but you must make sure that your users connect to the same type of servers at any given time.

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Dirk Van den Berghe

Answer 5

Thanks Marek Chmel and Dirk Van den Berghe for helping me :)

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Guneet Kalra