Intelligent Tech Channels Issue 05 | Page 18

ENTERPRISE TECHNOLOGY

Acronis AnyData Engine detaches workload from the original platform

The migration process starts with the Acronis AnyData Engine creating a disk image, which is a full copy of everything that is on the disks and partitions of a particular server or virtual machine. To preserve consistency of data, Acronis AnyData Engine takes a snapshot of the disk before creating the copy using Microsoft VSS, Linux LVM, or Acronis own drive snapshot technology, SnapAPI. The resulting disk image contains everything on the disk at the precise moment that the snapshot is taken. This creates a crash consistent image. The database saves all the transactions to the disk and freezes all activities.

The snapshot is taken and the resulting disk image is application consistent. During the copy process, the data is abstracted, a process of removing platform specifics from the data elements in order to reduce it to a set of essential characteristics and put it into a general, unified format. The Acronis AnyData Engine also creates the copy at the sector level so the opening and locking of files by the operating system does not affect the process. The disk image now contains everything required to run a workload.

Acronis AnyData Engine applies server workload to new hardware

The next step is to apply the disk and partition content to the target physical server or virtual machine. When migrating to a physical server, an operating system does not need to be installed on the new physical machine but simply load the image for bare metal recovery. Furthermore, the disk configuration of the target machine does not have to match the original machine because the Acronis AnyData Engine resizes the disks and partitions. The

How the Acronis AnyData Engine works.

disks only have to be large enough to hold all the data. For migration to virtual machines, the Acronis AnyData Engine connects directly to the managing hypervisor and creates a full virtual machine, including CPU, RAM, disk configuration. The Acronis AnyData Engine can also create virtual machines as a set of files on any disk storage.

Acronis AnyData Engine tunes

The Acronis AnyData Engine analyses the new hardware platform or hypervisor and tunes the operating system settings to match the new requirements. The Acronis AnyData Engine analyses the change in CPU type, number of CPUs, and changes the settings of the operating system. The Acronis AnyData Engine analyses each machine type, the motherboard and chipsets, hypervisor configuration, and changes the HAL setting of the operating system. Acronis Universal Restore technology analyses the target hardware and injects all the drivers required to boot the operating system. These include

SATA, SAS, SCSI and RAID drivers, as well as SAN HBA adapters.

Acronis Universal Restore disables all critical hardware drivers that are not present on the new machine in order to eliminate compatibility issues. Microsoft Windows drivers INF / SYS files can be loaded from any CD or network location. For Linux, Acronis Universal Restore leverages the driver modules built into the kernel, even if they are not active. The Acronis AnyData Engine injects and activates any required network drivers. On Windows systems, Acronis AnyData Engine disables and removes configuration of old network adapters when configuring the network.

Modern servers use UEFI method of booting the operating system, while virtual servers and older machines predominantly use BIOS. Acronis Universal Restore technology changes the partition layout, boot loader settings, boot configuration, to restore the image of the original BIOS machine to the UEFI platform or vice versa. This conversion works for most operating systems, in any direction.

18 Issue 05 INTELLIGENT TECH CHANNELS