Migrating systems to IBM SoftLayer - Overview

This is a first in a series of articles that discusses how to migrate workload to SoftLayer.
Special thanks for the content of this article goes to Matei Puiu, Gabriel Teodorescu, Mihai Garbia and Adrian Moti.

Overview of the Racemi tool for migration
With Racemi Cloud Path for IBM, you can now automatically move your existing servers to the SoftLayer platform and benefit on minimal downtime of your existing workload. Cloud Path for IBM provides an automated cloud instances migration process that moves the entire server stack to the new Softlayer environment in a few easy to follow steps.

Description of a sample configuration for migration and CloudPath for IBM setup
We will go through the process of migrating one active server to SoftLayer by using the Racemi CloudPath for IBM Migration method. After the migration we will expect the same type of instance with the same configuration to be running on the SoftLayer platform.

The prerequisites for this guide are access to the active source server and proper SoftLayer accounts The process starts by describing the creation of the Racemi account.

Creating the Racemi CloudPath for IBM account:

1. Access the link 
2. Click 'sign up' button from the Registration and Login box.
3. Complete the user, password and other informations in the registration form. 
4. Check your email and click on the link to complete the registration process.

For more information, you can also check the Racemi provided tutorial. 

Getting started with CloudPath for IBM
When you first log into CloudPath4ibm, you will be presented with options to register your cloud credentials and download your migration agent.

Prepare and clean up the instances prior to migration
Please take into account a certain downtime of your servers during migration. The downtime depends on the quantity of data as well as the transfer speed which is directly impacted by the geographical location of the source server and the target SoftLayer datacenter. 

Checklist prior to migration:

• make sure the instance is running at the time of migration
• verify access to your instance – Linux instances need to be accessible via SSH key, and Windows instances via RDP
• since the post migration logging in, is done using the same credentials as for the source system, make sure you save the SSH key or account credentials for Windows backed up
• make sure the Racemi migration agent is installed 

Post migration configuration and validation, update procedures
After the migration process is completed, your old server will also be available on SCE. Most likely, clients will still connect to this server. Client migration procedures are necessary in order to re-direct the traffic to the newly created server. Please keep in mind that the new server will have different IP settings.

Below you can see an example of this change:

Original instance:
[idcuser@vhost5112 ~]$ cat /etc/resolv.conf
domain site2.compute.com
nameserver 129.35.212.106
nameserver 129.35.212.107
[idcuser@vhost5112 ~]$ hostname --long
vhost5112.site2.compute.com

SoftLayer migrated instance:
[idcuser@mgrh64enh ~]$ hostname --long
mgrh64enh.racemi.com
[idcuser@mgrh64enh ~]$ cat /etc/resolv.conf
nameserver 10.0.80.11
nameserver 10.0.80.12

Known issues and limitations

• Logging in to the CCI instances will be done with the original server authentication method and credentials
• To use the full 100GB disk space that SoftLayer provides, you might need to modify the partition layout.
• Note that SoftLayer cannot create partitions larger than 300GB on local storage.
  If you plan to migrate partitions larger than 300GB, use SAN storage as server configuration in Racemi's Cloudpath migration tool, which supports up to approximately 2TB partitions.
• When you plan to migrate, take into account that, when Windows creates a partition, it allocates a small amount of partition space to the NTFS file system table. This space varies depending on the partition size, so the actual available space on the partition will be less than the partition size.
  For example a SoftLatyer 2TB partition has 1999,85GB free space. If your SCE partition size is more than this size, then the migration will fail.
  To overcome this issue, either split your partitions into multiple smaller partitions, or if you have enough free space shrink the partition to a size smaller than 1999,85GB
• All the migrated CCIs will have a NIC with a public IP and a secondary NIC with a private IP, regardless of the number of interfaces the source system had. If a user requires more IP addresses, he can request additional IPs by logging to the old portal (https://manage.softlayer.com) and clicking on 'Add IP Addresses' in the 'Sales' menu. He can then add the IP addresses to one of the instance NIC by following this Knowledge Layer guide:
• Windows
• Red Hat
• If you make any major file system structure changes on the source instance, such as resizing a partition or attaching/detaching a storage, a reboot of the instance or a restart of the dynacenter service Are required, in order for the Racemi agent to be able to update the settings before the migration process begins

Check back here on this blog for more articles on migration to SoftLayer.