Active directory server from physical to hyperv virtual

[fresh1003]

Cheers all,

I need to make old phyiscial windows 2008 r2 domain controller virtual. I created a second AD in Windows 2019. Issues this server host some old applications, therefore I need to keep it. I know its not good idea to do p2v for dc. But I need to do it anyway.

What do you guys suggest?

[Denis-Kelley]

Don’t do it. Do you have any other applications on that server besides domain services?

[swheeler]

Get the virtual DC fully set up as a secondary, then demote the physical and promote the virtual to Primary?

[fresh1003]

that could work

[Robert5205]

No reason not to do it. As long as you don’t take forever to bring up the virtualized copy, it’ll just seem like a reboot.

If it’s possible to move the DC services off the old server and demote it, that would be better as you’d have less to possibly get screwed up.

But, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. And, you’ll get a good backup in the process.

[shawnsteward (rthonpm)]

Since you’re using Hyper-V, just use the Sysinternals tool Disk2VHD to do the conversion. I’d lean towards removing the DC role from the machine before doing the conversion and just migrating it as an application server.

[supaplex-starwind]

@fresh1003

I know its not good idea to do p2v for dc. But I need to do it anyway. What do you guys suggest?

Just do it. There is nothing wrong with P2Ving almost anything. You can use Microsoft Disk2VHD Disk2vhd - Sysinternals | Microsoft Learn to convert your existing physical disk into a VHDX container that you can use to create a virtual machine. A better option would be using the free V2V converter V2V Converter / P2V Converter - Converting VM Formats to automatically convert your existing physical server into a virtual machine using your Hyper-V host credentials.

As a second step, I recommend you create a newer virtual machine to host your Active Directory services and use the old Windows Server 2008 R2 solely to run those mentioned legacy applications.