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This section describes how to migrate your Alpha system to CHARONCharon-AXP. We will use a sample AlphaServer ES40 system running OpenVMS to demonstrate the migration procedure. This chapter also contains some instructions for Tru64 UNIX, but it mainly concentrates on how to migrate OpenVMS hosts. The process is similar for all CHARONall Charon-AXP models.

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The first step is to determine the exact configuration of your Alpha hardware in order to create the CHARONCharon-AXP configuration file that will accurately mimic the hardware.

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Creation of

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Charon-AXP configuration file

Using the above information, the following configuration can be created:

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In our example, possible mappings of the KZPBA SCSI controller include disk and tape images. Tape images do not have not to be manually created whereas you have to provision disk images, as described below.

Our The example below creates disk images of the original physical type. In reality, this step is the best opportunity in the migration to provision larger disks to get extra storage space.Create You should avoid the temptation to create identically-sized virtual disks, and regard the migration as an opportunity to create larger virtual disks than the original disks, if needed. Of course, if you increase the size of the disks, you will have to migrate a logical backup ("VMS Backup") of the filesystem, as opposed to a physical backup of the original disk.

Create special directories for storing disk and tape images, as needed. These directories are referenced in the sample configuration file above.

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The next step is to transfer the data from the source Alpha system to CHARONCharon-AXP. The easiest way to do this is via backups over the network. For this operation we need a bootable, network-enabled operating system on a CHARONCharon-AXP disk image or physical disk.

The example configures the CHARONCharon-AXP AlphaServer ES40 system for installation of OpenVMS from a distribution CD-ROM (usually it is "/dev/cdrom" if the host has only one CD-ROM drive):

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Create an empty disk image for installation of OpenVMS and another one for storing backups from the source Alpha system as it is shown in the section above.

Run CHARONCharon-AXP and boot from the CDROM named "dqa0" ("migration.cfg" is the configuration file we use in this example):

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Now we are ready to create disk backups from the source Alpha system to CHARONCharon-AXP.

Boot the CHARONCharon-AXP virtual machine and make sure that the source Alpha system is reachable via DECnet. 

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The use of the "SHOW DEVICE /FILES" command would be of help to know files opened on a disk

Let's assume the CHARONCharon-AXP system is node 1.400 in this example. Issue then the following commands from the source Alpha whose prompt is set to "source$ ":

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When the backup procedure will be completed, the disk "DKA300" of the CHARONCharon-AXP virtual machine will contain 3 savesets: "DKA0.BCK", "DKA100.BCK" and "DKA200.BCK"

Restore backups to

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Charon-AXP disks

Next, restore the new savesets to their corresponding virtual disks. Login to CHARONCharon-AXP and issue this sequence of commands to restore all the savesets created in the previous step:

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If you are going to have the CHARONCharon-AXP and the original physical Alpha on the network at the same time, you must change the network identity of one (usually the CHARONCharon-AXP).

The easiest way is to boot the CHARONCharon-AXP virtualized system on the restored system disk with the network disabled and to configure new addresses, as needed.

The NIC can be disabled with a "disabled" statement in the CHARON the Charon configuration file.

Then Enable the network and reboot.

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• Connect a SCSI tape drive to the CHARONCharon-AXP host via a PCI card 
  
  • Map the tape drive in the CHARONCharon-AXP configuration file

         a. Restore the source Alpha system backups from tape to disk images via OpenVMS running on CHARONCharon-AXP.
         b. Boot from standalone backups and restore the content to CHARONto Charon-AXP virtual disks.

  • Dump the source Alpha system backups to tape images with the "mtd" utility and:
         a. Boot from the freshly installed OpenVMS system and restore the tape images to CHARONCharon-AXP virtual disks.
         b. Boot from standalone backups and restore the content to CHARONto Charon-AXP virtual disks.

• Create a network cluster between the source Alpha system and CHARONCharon-AXP (it is possible to use the source system as a boot server) then perform backups from one disk to another:

  $ BACKUP/IMAGE/IGNORE=INTERLOCK REAL$DKA0: DKA0:

  
  

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