Copy entire environment from one server to another? -

Name	Points
Greg Moeller	4184
David Williams	3349
JonA	3288
Kat V	2984
Woozy	1973
Jimmy Chiu	1883
Kwane McNeal	1437
Ragu Raghavan	1348
Roger French	1311
mark.cook	1244

John Costa

Veteran Member

Posts: 154

6/1/2010 1:56 PM

I seem to recall this was discussed in a prior thread but have been unable to locate it.

Is it possible to use an imaging tool to make a backup of an entire environment (including the LDAP, the core Lawson environment, and the application product lines) and restore that backup to a new server of a different name?

Specifically, I want to use Acronis True Image to image our existing production server and restore that to a new development server. The development server will have a different IP address and name.

I know technically it can be done as I am very familiar with Acronis True Image, but what additional steps would I need to take to get the new development environment functional? There are sure to be many configuration files that would need to be updated to reflect the new server name / IP address. What about the AD-LDS repository?

We are a MS-Windows shop and my environment is running on Windows Server 2008 - 64-bit.

Has anyone done this successfully?

Jimmy Chiu

Veteran Member

Posts: 641

6/1/2010 2:12 PM

The first problem that you will encounter is the SID of the two exact images. You will need to reset/regenerate the SID of the computer to a different one. I don't think the NewSID utility from Microsoft's sysinternal works with 64bit Win2008. When two computers with the same SID are on the domain, it's gonna bark out errors from your DC.

John Costa

Veteran Member

Posts: 154

6/1/2010 8:00 PM

Thanks, Jimmy, I'm aware of the SID issue. My server group would most likely address the SID issue when they change the server name and IP address after the restore.

Do you have any suggestions about what else I need to look at? I already know I need to hit the caps files for each of my product lines as well as some of the config files located in %LAWDIR%\system.

Jimmy Chiu

Veteran Member

Posts: 641

6/2/2010 7:00 PM

My first throught is the websphere install will need to be redone. Hostname/node will not be correct. I am copying a VM and going to rename the servername on that copy and see how IIS/WebSphere will act up.

Jimmy Chiu

Veteran Member

Posts: 641

6/4/2010 7:17 PM

I give up on this one. LOL no cloning for me unless someone else can figure it out.

John Costa

Veteran Member

Posts: 154

6/4/2010 7:44 PM

Jimmy - Can you elaborate on what major issues you ran into?

JenM

Basic Member

Posts: 16

3/17/2011 2:26 PM

Did anyone ever figure out if cloning is a valid option? And what steps to take?

Kwane McNeal

Veteran Member

Posts: 479

3/17/2011 6:37 PM

Actually, I clone environments all day long, for many clients. There are a few keys. First, you have to do the INITIAL installation with cloning capability configured. There are VERY SPECIFIC option required to make it work correctly. If you do a standard install from LPS, you will have EXTREMELY difficult time cloning, if you can accomplish it all.

Now with that said, be sure you need to clone, VERSUS refresh.
To refresh an environment with data from another environment, there are six to ten commands you need to run, and you are done.

Now, I do not intend to give away my methods on this list for cloning, since it's not simple, even though it is straightforward. If someone would like to get basic tips, feel free to contact me offline.

I have scripts to handle this, and for those, I'd need to be retained as a consultant.

Kwane
954-547-7210

Barry Ghotra

Veteran Member

Posts: 63

2/7/2013 5:13 AM

Anyone care to share their cheat sheets or high level steps for cloning. I've a need to copy PROD to DEV and then change a few things to bring up the environment. Kwane if you are interested we can talk. We have discussed this in the past but never could wrap it up. I know a great deal about Oracle, AIX etc,, but need to know the changes for Websphere as well as lawson configuration files, if any for the hostname change.

Thanks in advance.

Kwane McNeal

Veteran Member

Posts: 479

2/7/2013 11:25 AM

Barry,
A few of our last conversations I stated that the config files for Lawson you needed were all in LAWDIR/system, and a few changes in ldap.

The bigger issue is how you want to do WebSphere. Personally I have jython and jacl (depending on version) to recreate everything, since I treat DR as distinct from cloning (and thus SOA isn't a factor), and architect my systems that way, but I know you really wanted to modify the WAS configuration files, and you wanted the WAS internal object names to match.

You will need to mod each WAS profile's copy of the cell config. Everything. If you change hostname *only*, it's not awful. Since you wanted to change WAS internal object name also, then that's going to be nightmarishly tricky. It *can* be done via a rename and string replace, but it's really not worth it.

Kwane

John Henley

Senior Member

Posts: 3348

2/7/2013 11:58 AM

I second Kwane (and will remind you that great minds think alike). Cloning WAS is not worth the hassle--much easier to reinstall it.