 Hi everybody, welcome to the latest episode from the rock to the cloud with me Tom Hall. I'm here today talking all things Windows Server, talking Azure, talking hyper converged data center. All of that kind of goodness is what we talk about and you know, as always, I've managed to, I've managed to rangle a special guest. Again, we're very, very lucky to have today an actual proper expert. As always, you're not just listening to me babble on about absolute rubbish and we've got a proper actual certified expert in the house. So before we talk about what we're going to talk about today, I would like to introduce our guest. So it's Pierre Raman. He's here all the way from where are you coming just from today, Pierre? I am located in Ottawa, Canada. Canada, Ottawa, Canada, that sounds so exotic to us Brits who, you know, I'm coming close from, in between swindering and redding, not quite as, not doesn't sound quite as exciting as where you're from. Okay, as you mentioned, I'm here. I'm a senior cloud advocate, which really is those titles don't really mean much. What it does mean is that my work is to promote the platform, but also to take feedback from the community. And in my case, my community is the hybrid worker, the on-prem server hugger, the cable puller, and the security people and operations, all of those people put together, that's my community. So they tell me what they like and don't like about our products in terms of this doesn't work in this scenario and so on. And then I work with the product group to see whether or not we can address that. So that's my role in a nutshell. I've been in IT for, and I'm going to be aging myself here severely. I've been in IT here for about 30 years. Back in the days of Novel, I think the first one I installed was Novel 1.5 or Novel 2. Back when the most powerful PC we had in the office was an 8088 with the math coprocessor. Nice. And it was probably about the same size as the room you're in now. But you're not that old because my spies out there tell me that you're actually part of the bad gamer community because you're so good at gaming. So you're only as old as the games you play, so we very much appreciate you making the time and like I said it's good to have somebody who actually knows what to talk about. So what are we going to talk about today? I think we're going to talk about storage migration service, which is SMS. Now, where I'm from in the UK, we call text messages SMS. I don't know what they're called in Canada, but if they're called SMS, so like I might send SMS in somebody, but we're not texting anybody, are we Roman? We're going to know what is storage migration service? Can you maybe explain that to everybody? Yes. First, SMS. Microsoft really loves our acronym. We use them anywhere. We even have two different division within Microsoft internal that are both the same acronym, CSE. One is customer software engineering and the other one is core service engineering, but we have the same. So when you're ever telling somebody, oh, I'm working with CSE, you have to be a bit more precise. That's the case in this one too. So SMS or storage migration service is a service that's built into Windows admin console and sits on top of Windows that allows you to migrate file shares. It's a feature in Windows Server 2019. It's a feature of Windows admin console that runs on top of 2019 and other versions. Cool. Okay. What versions of Windows Server can you migrate from? Because I'd imagine you can probably only go back so far. Well, anything really that's a Windows Server since 2003. 2003, okay. Because really, it leverages SMB and it leverages existing technologies that have been present for a number of years. Okay. Okay. And it is decades because sometimes you have to remind people that are in IT that we are in 2021 because if you're still running your server on 2003, that is a long, long time ago. I mean, that's 18 years ago, that's like two decades. Yep. It's a long time. I appreciate it. You know, you were only working in IT for 10 years when that happened. So, you know what I mean? And you really think about too that those servers not only because the mentality of the IT worker or the operations folks is if it ain't broke, don't touch it. Yeah. So if your file server is there and it's running and it's doing its job and you've still got capacity and like everything else is hunkidory, that's fine. However, with older servers that because they're out of support and our support lifecycle is as five years of mainstream and five years of extended for a total of 10 years in terms of security patches, for example. So those servers are no longer patches, patched. So those servers and if you're looking at 2003 and 2008, the version of SMB that's used is not as secure as the current version of SMB that's been, that's let's say 2019, 2016, 2019 servers are running. Yeah. So if you've got older versions of those protocols running, then you are vulnerable for other things such as crypto malware where somebody's going to drop a phishing attack on your company, somebody's going to click on the link because users click on every link that's in their emails and then all of a sudden all your files are encrypted and you don't know why that happened. Yeah, I'm not saying that the current version is going to completely protect you, but it's going to mitigate some of those risks. And I guess that would be a conversation for another episode. No, I mean, absolutely. And you know, security is one thing, capacity is another, you know, speed and performance, all of these things come into it. And you know what, 10 years worth of support, i.e., we actually support our software for 10 years is that I think is pretty reasonable. You know, and it's not like, you know, that's not like us forcing you to buy new software. It's just there are improvements and surely you want those improvements. It's not only reasonable, but it's also predictable because this this policy was put in back in the days of Steve Vommer, where our customers were saying that they were confused as to this, because if you had this server, if you had like a SQL server, it was supported for X amount of years, if he had a Windows server was supported for X amount of years, there was no real standard. When that policy came in, every enterprise product had to adhere to that policy, five years of mainstream support, five years of extended support for a total of 10 years. Which, you know, that's good because it gives people a piece of mind, but it also allows them to work on a reasonable time plane plan for the future, which is, you know, excellent. Now, SMS, so I'm just going to text you, SMS, storage migration service. Does that allow people to do more than is it just a Windows server service? You know, can you do other other platforms, other sources? So, you know, the storage migration service itself runs on Windows. However, you can migrate from all of those Windows servers that we've mentioned, 2003, 2008, 2008 R2, even to the small business servers, and the essentials servers that we had for a while, and even the storage servers that have been the SKU for storage servers. But you can also migrate from Linux, and we've tested and we've got support for, and I'm looking at my list right now, so I don't forget any, CentOS, Debian, Linux, Red Hat, Enterprise, Suzy Linux, Ubuntu, and a number of versions of SAMBA servers. So you can migrate from those to a Windows server file share. You can also migrate from a clustered. So if you've got a clustered file server, you can actually migrate from the cluster to a new server. And the reason we do that, and the reason that that server, or that service, I should say, is really needed. If any of you listeners have ever tried to migrate a file share from one server to another, typically we used to use that like RoboCopy or something to that effect. You have no idea how many parameters, flags, files, hidden files that it misses. So you copy it and then you copy it again and, oh, all of a sudden you've got more files than you did before, or you think you're done and somebody says, hey, what about this file? And this is a way to organize it so that you can migrate, but also manage the cutover because somebody in a document is going to have a link to whack, whack, server name, whack, file share, name, whack, file name. Well, if you migrate to a new server, what happens to all these documents with these links that are embedded in it? Yeah, yeah. And that's one of the strengths. Yeah, you don't, and also you don't want to miss, like, whacking people. No. That's cool. Yeah, I love it. Again, like ID pros from across the pond are always a whacking stuff, which always, it makes me laugh every time you guys say it's brilliant. And so, you know, it's not just like different platforms that you've come from. So it's not just Linux, you know, Ubuntu or in fact, well, Samba server, which is obviously everyone's favorite server because it's Samba time, right? But in terms of, like, yeah, exactly, we just have a quick Samba. Come on, Pierre. Yeah, you really don't want to see me dance. No, I love it. But, you know, I can imagine you can do like different file versions, or, you know, different, you know, hard drive types, or, you know, these kind of things, it does all sorts of stuff, right? Well, it doesn't care. Okay, like the service itself doesn't care because it talks to the server. So if the server has got different drive type, if it's a connected to a fiber channel to a LAN, where you've got your storage mounted, it doesn't care because it's talking to the server, it's not talking to the storage directly, which is another one is that, not too long ago, I can't remember the exact dates, we do have support for some network attached storage devices such as like the NetApp, the FAS arrays, the CIFS servers, or basically, sir, running on tap nine. So, network storage account, now attached storage is now becoming more and more supported as a source of a migration. Okay. And that makes sense. I suppose you can then consolidate multiple sources and multiple servers, all at the same time, I'm guessing. Well, you can run multiple migration at the same time. Consolidating servers from multiple sources to a single destination is not necessarily supported because there are some inherent problems there where you may have, because typically, IT pros and operations folks, when they set up a server, they tend to set them all up the same, where you put the OS on the drive C and you put the data on drive X, and you have a top level folder called shares, and under that you'll have your groups. But when you're trying to migrate that, and if you have conflicts from one server to another that have the same names, then it starts creating all kinds of problems and starts renaming. So we don't quite recommend or support consolidation of servers. You can migrate one and then try to migrate the second one to the same destination. But when it runs through its analysis, it'll say, I can't do this, I can't do this, and it'll give you some issues where what it's going to find. Okay, so it might lock particular files that get migrated or it might exclude some things from transfers. Is it doing on purpose? Is that going to be detrimental to the results? Or how does that work within the storage migration service when you're doing that? Like, what happens if you get locked files once you've migrated some data across from one place to another? Okay, so for locked files, so if a file is locked by an exclusive application lock, so if your application X is running somewhere in your environment and it's got those files locked. Migration service is not going to migrate them because it can't break that lock. But what it does is it retries several time and if it still misses it, then it's just going to market and then it'll carry on. So the best practice typically is to basically you run your migration, but you don't do the cut over. So you end up with like two versions or two copies and then you will run the migration several times so you can run that job several times. So if let's say we're planning next Friday, not tomorrow, but next Friday we're planning a migration from server one to server two. So I would run it, let's say this weekend to do the bulk. Yeah. And then on Monday night, I would run it again to try to catch what was locked and then I would run it again several times. And then when I look at and operations folks will understand that we're going to do the cut over in the maintenance window. You don't have to. It's just best practice. So you say next Friday at five o'clock when everybody's going to the pub, we're going to lock the environment. We're going to log everybody out and we're going to actually do the cut over and you run it one last time and because at that point everybody is locked out, the files should all be unlocked and then it migrates whatever is left because you can run it. It's cumulative so it doesn't restart from the beginning. It just whatever you missed the first time, it'll do the second time. Okay. And then that just becomes more efficient, right? It does become more efficient, but on the last time that's when you turn on the cut over, which basically takes the identity of server one and make server to impersonate that server one. So the SMB share name are going to be the same. The server name is going to be the same. The IP address is going to be the same because as much as we tell our users not to use IP address to do links for servers, there's a developer somewhere that's going to put in an IP address or hard code and IP address into a link somewhere. So the IP addresses are migrated. The name of the servers are migrated. So that's the next person that will logs into the system and goes back to Wackwack server one, Wack share name, Wack file will still get their file even though the file is now physically located on a new server. Yeah, they'll never even know. And our domain, I mean, a domain migration is also supported with SMS. No, no, yeah. Your destination and your source and destination must be in the same domain. So any won't even do across work groups. So it has to be in the same domain. Okay. That's cool. Another question that we've got here is clusters. Are clusters as sources or destinations supported? They're supported as both source and destination. Cool. But it also depends on the OS that's running on those though for your destination and make sure that you have the right version and patched because I know from what I'd say Windows 2019 when it first came out, there wasn't supported, but with some of the patches and the updates that we've had since, and it's all documented and on the storage migration documentation, which can be found at HTTPS Wackwack aka.ms slash storemig, S-T-O-R-M-I-G. I don't know how you remember those addresses. I mean, that's, yeah, that's amazing. Well, you're sort of, you know, leading me to sort of, I suppose it's the end of the chat really now. I mean, there's a couple of other things that we could ask you. So, you know, our local groups and users able to migrate, they all migrate across, yeah? Yes. So that's one of the things that source migration does when at first, so you select your source, then it goes and does an analysis of the source. What is it running? Does it have the right patches? Is it connected? Is it okay? How many shares does it have? How many files does it have? Which, and then it looks at the ACLs or the access control lists of all of those shares and all those files. And if it finds a local group and local users, we'll then recreate to those local groups and local users on the destination server. Brilliant, excellent. Well, look, we've asked you loads of quick fire questions, I suppose, about SMS. And I think, you know, I think in terms of understanding, you know, where it is and what people can do with it, I mean, it's an essential part, I suppose, what the, you know, the IT expert talk it is nowadays, right? And, you know, it's part of our latest software. So that's, you know, that's brilliant. Where would you suggest the best person or the best place, not the best person? Well, obviously you're the best person, but we can't have everybody come and talk to you. But if they can't come and talk to you, Pierre, where would you recommend that they go to find out about, you know, storage migration service? Okay, so for storage migration service, the documentation, which includes some tutorials and includes some step-by-step, can be found at the address that I gave earlier, which is aka.ms slash S-T-O-R-M-I-G, it's for StoreMig. That's just a short link for a very long URL that I will never remember in my life. In terms of talking to me and my team, your audience can reach us either on Twitter or on our Discord server, because we do have a Discord server for the community to actually discuss these things. So it can be found on aka.ms slash ITOpsTalk-Discord. And there, my entire team looks at that and even Ned Pyle is a part of that community and Ned is the Godfather of Storage Migration Service, actually participates in the discussion. So if you've got some questions, you can come to our community and check it out online. That's amazing. I think you'd be surprised. I think people will do that. So we've talked a little bit about, you know, Storage Migration Service. I think, you know, it does a lot more than certainly I thought it did, which is great. So thanks for explaining that. This is the silly bit of the show where the guys that make the show, the guys behind the scenes that you can't see, which, before we do that, right, by the way, audience, you just need to know what a pro Pierre is. Pierre, can we just go through your cameras? Can we just go through, can we do camera one, camera two, like in the movies? Camera one, camera two. Camera two, there he is. So you get a different view of my office. Pretty cool office. Or I could basically do a hands-on demo here. Sweet. I mean, how cool is that? I mean, like, easily the coolest guests. I don't want to say that because then other guests might hear. No, it's good. No, Pierre, there's definitely been great chatting with you today, but the producers of the show like to do something silly. It's called the server meme review. Basically, they're going to flash up a, I suppose, a silly couple of memes. They're server-related. As you can tell, I'm super technical when it comes to servers, so I probably don't know what they mean, but I think you'll probably get them. So let's see the memes and get the reactions. Now, audience, again, as always, if you've got silly meme that you want to send in to us or you've got comments on the memes, we do want to know. So please send them in to me and we'll make sure that we get them onto the show. So, three, two, one, let's see the first meme. You need migration. It's a your thing. Oh, my good Lord. Even I know that's bad. That's so bad. Okay, first of all, you need migration, yes, but it's not an Azure thing. It's a Windows server thing. So, it's so bad. And I like the fact that you need it. It's almost like, I know you've got the, I don't know if you get the British version of the office with Ricky Gervais, but that is Ricky Gervais right there. Like it's not Ricky Gervais, but it's a guy who thinks he's Ricky Gervais, right? Yeah, he's the guy that's pointing at the guy at somebody else when the user comes in and says, where are my files? Cause I did not use server migration service. So he's like, talk to him. Yeah, that's exactly it. Like he's got it totally wrong. Oh, brilliant. Right, okay. So, meme number two, right? Three, two, one, here we go. It's my favorite bit. You must construct additional servers. You must construct additional servers. I mean, it's kind of funny. It's just a lot of, I mean, that's a lot of servers. So do they really need more servers? I suppose we do. When you say it's a lot of servers, it's all a perspective thing. For somebody who works in a small office, yes, that's a lot of servers. If you visited a Azure data center, which not a lot of people do, cause it's even myself, I haven't actually been allowed to see a real one. This is not a lot of servers. But I am amazed at how clean that wiring is. Cause typically they all look like spaghetti. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, I think, I mean, that's pretty good. I know I did actually arrange a customer visit for some partners on my way back to go to an Azure data center. And they actually got had to get picked up in an unmarked van at a specific time and they had to be blindfolded. So that is genuinely true. Like that is true. So, you know, we do appreciate that. But that is, you're right. It's quite nice and neat. Yeah, if you're Tokyo, I don't believe it. It must be photoshopped. Yeah, it's not, that's not a real, that's not real. That's my data center that I remember. There you are. Is that you in the data center? That could be me. I have, I've been known to be in that position in my 30 years. That the problem is always the, can you patch the conference room into the outside network? And I have to find a wire that connects the two. Oh dear, I'm so glad that I'm just a rubbish sales guy and I've never had to do that. So, you know, look, Roman, thank you so much for all of your work behind the scenes, plugging in those patch cables. I really appreciate it. You know, you've probably saved at least one or two of my meetings. Look, I think if we were just to summarize really quickly, kind of what we'd learned today about, you know, the storage migration service, you know, where is it accessible and kind of what are the key benefits that you would suggest that people can take away from the chat we've talked about? Okay, key benefits number one is that using a service that will enable you to move from an insecure platform to a secure platform easily, effectively and cost efficiently because that's not a, you don't have to pay anything that's built into Server 2019 Windows Admin Console is going to bring you benefits in terms of a more stable and more efficient environment. That's number one. I think number two is you don't have to lock yourselves, like you're not locked into from one source to one destination, whatever, generally speaking, whatever storage solution you're currently running, we can accommodate and migrate to a physical server. But one thing that the migration service does do now, if you want to, for example, migrate to a virtual server, if you're getting rid of your data center or moving an office or something, you can use the storage migration service to actually create an appropriate VM for you in Azure and will migrate to the storage to that VM. Wow, so it's truly the best of both and it's built into the software that you get today and probably have already if you're a 2019 customer or one of our future customers, one of our future versions, which I can't talk about, but there could be future versions of our software that might also have this software in. So that's, yeah, you heard it first. Oh my God, that's so awkward. Right, okay, well, we will move on very quickly from that point, Pierre, that's me putting my foot in my mouth. Thanks so much for joining us today on From the Rock to the Cloud. Keep your eyes out for the next episode and remember, everybody, if you love what you've heard or if you want to hear different things or specific things or talk to more experts like Pierre about things that they actually know, then we will do that and make sure that you get that. So please leave your comments in the comments section and drop us your thoughts. We'd love to hear from you and thank you very much. Again, Pierre, it's been a pleasure and we will look very much to talk to you again in the future. Thank you very much.