Getting Ready › CA AppLogic End of Life Information › EOL Overview › Exporting User Data, Singletons, Catalog Appliances and VDS Applications to Other Cloud Platforms

Exporting User Data, Singletons, Catalog Appliances and VDS Applications to Other Cloud Platforms

Virtual appliances created for AppLogic will not operate properly as-is on the other cloud platforms.

The AppLogic appliances expect a set of configuration files prepared by the AppLogic Cloud Controller as well as an AppLogic virtual network infrastructure being present.

You could possibly modify the AppLogic appliance to boot on the other cloud platform. However, this is not recommended and it is advised to do this only for data extraction purposes, if all other means of extracting the data are not available.

Extracting Data from User Volumes

There are several ways to extract the data from user or system volume.

1. (Recommended) Export the user volume that contains the data from the AppLogic platform, then import the user volume on the target system and copy the data.

   For additional information on volume export, please refer to Volume Export in the Volume Management section of the Command Line Shell Reference.

   • OpenStack Cloud
     • To import the exported volume into the OpenStack cloud, extract it with gunzip and import into the Cinder with "cinder create" command. Attach the new block device to the VM of your choice to copy the data.

       For additional information of the Cinder create operation, refer to the Openstack Cinder documentation.

   • Amazon EC2 Cloud
     • To copy the exported volume to the Amazon EC2 cloud, unpack the volume with gunzip. Import the volume with ec2-import-volume command, specifying 'raw' as a volume type. For additional information, refer to Amazon documentation. The location is http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/CommandLineReference/ec2-cli-get-set-up.html.
   • VMWare ESXi Server
     • To copy the exported volume to VMWare ESXi server, unpack the volume with gunzip. Convert the volume from raw to vmdk format using the VMWare-supplied qemu-img tool.

       For additional information on the conversion process, refer to VMWare documentation.

2. Mount the user volume in a Filer and copy the data to the target system over the network.

   For additional information on volume export, please refer to Volume Export in the Volume Management section of the Command Line Shell Reference.

   During the initiation of the volume manage operation, you can specify the network details, such as the IP address, network, vlan and DNS address, that are assigned to the Filer. After the Filer starts, you can use these network settings to access the files on the mounted volume.

   In addition, you can manage the user volumes through the GUI interface. To do this, open the application that contains the user volume, then right-clock the canvas and select Manage Volumes. The Volume window displays. Select the required volume and click the Manage button. In the Manage Volume window, copy the files.

3. Copy the data from within existing application.

   Depending on the application structure, it might be possible to copy the data directly to a new location. If your application does not have outside network access, consider adding a gateway or VPN to the application, and copying the data out of the application.

Exporting AppLogic Singleton Appliances

Appliances designed for the AppLogic platform will not operate properly without the AppLogic infrastructure present. However, depending on the specific appliance, you may be able to start the appliance on a different platform.

Note: We only recommend doing this with the single purpose of extracting the data, if all other ways are not available.

The process is:

• Prepare the AppLogic Appliance for Export
• Export the AppLogic Appliance

Prepare the AppLogic Appliance for Export

Linux Appliances

Follow these steps:

1. If the AppLogic appliance that you want to export is not a singleton, branch the appliance prior to exporting.

For additional information on branching, please refer to the Branch Generic Appliances section of the Appliance Developer Guide.

1. Start the application where the appliance is located. Once application starts, log in to the appliance command line.
2. Copy the appliance configuration settings for reference.

   cp -r /var/run/applogic /root/applogic_backup
   

3. Set the root password.

   passwd root
   

4. Disable AppLogic services.

   chkconfig applogic_init off
   chkconfig applogic_appliance off
   

5. Verify all network configuration files, such as /etc/sysconfig/networking_scripts/ifcfg-eth*, are set for DHCP on boot.
6. To mount the volume instead of booting it, you should change the boot volume label to avoid conflicts. You can use "e2label", if needed.
7. Verify the following option is not listed on the kernel line of /boot/grub/grub.conf. If that option is there, remove the option.

   "xen_emul_unplug=never". 
   

8. Shutdown application.

Windows Appliances

Follow these steps:

1. If the AppLogic appliance that you want to export is not a singleton, branch the appliance prior to exporting.

   For additional information on branching, please refer to the Branch Generic Appliances section of the Appliance Developer Guide.

2. Start the application where the appliance is located. Once application starts, log in to the appliance command line.
3. Using Cygwin, copy the appliance configuration settings for reference:

   cp -r /var/run/applogic /root/applogic_backup
   

4. Set the Administrator password.
   1. Select Start > Administrative Tools > Services
   2. Right click applogic_init > Properties
   3. Set Startup type to disabled
   4. Repeat these steps for both the applogic_appliance service and for the CYGWIN sshd service.

      passwd root
      

5. Verify all Local Area Connection instances are set to DHCP.

   Use the AppLogic GUI, not RDP, to perform the network changes.

6. Shutdown application.

Export AppLogic Appliances

Follow these steps:

1. Identify and export all volumes that belong to the appliance.

   For additional information on volume export, please refer to Volume Export in the Volume Management section of the Command Line Shell Reference.

2. Import the volumes to the target platform.
   • OpenStack Platform:
     • Import the boot volume of the appliance into Cinder or Glance
     • Import the usr and data volumes into Cinder
     • Boot using the boot volume as an image file. When starting the VM, specify the imported data and usr volumes as additional block devices.
   • Amazon EC2 Platform:
     • Unpack the boot volume with gunzip, and import the boot volume with ec2-import-instance, specifying 'raw' as a disk format.
     • Import the rest of the volumes with ec2-import-volume command, specifying 'raw' as a volume type.
   • VMWare ESXi:
     • Convert the volume from raw to vmdk format using the VMWare-supplied qemu-img tool.
     • Import the vmdk volumes into ESXi
     • Assign the volumes to the VM and boot from the former boot volume.

Notes

• For Windows-based operating systems, the boot volume should be attached to an IDE-based storage controller when migrating to the VMWare ESXi hypervisor.
• The imported VM will not have any network configured and may not have user volumes mounted automatically since AppLogic appliances rely on the AppLogic controller for configuration files. You will need to recreate the network configuration matching the new environment manually. Refer to the CentOS and the target virtualization platform documentation.

  Each terminal present on the appliance is represented by a virtual Ethernet device. The name of each output terminal, such as 'out' or 'mon', corresponds to the IP address of the remote appliance terminal it is connected to, as defined in the '/etc/hosts' file.

  The name of any input terminal resolves to the IP address assigned to the Ethernet device representing this terminal. While recreating the network layout of the AppLogic application on a foreign fabric, the '/etc/hosts' configuration file must be recreated on each virtual machine, and the network setting must properly propagated to the corresponding interfaces.

• The started VM might not have user volumes mounted automatically due to mismatching device names. You will have to either update the '/etc/fstab' with the proper devices, or update the AppLogic configuration files in '/var/run/applogic/' with the proper device names.

  The started VM relies on AppLogic configuration files, such as 'appliance.desc', 'appliance.sh' or 'appliance.conf', are present in the '/var/run/applogic/' directory. These files are generated by AppLogic controller every time application boots up, and are downloaded to the appliance by AppLogic services.

  The CentOS startup script removes all files from '/var/run/' during start up, so configuration will not be preserved between reboots.

  To preserve the configuration across reboots and re-use the saved configuration backup, assuming that the configuration backup was saved in '/root/applogic_backup/' , follow these steps:

  1. Update all scripts and configuration files in the '/appliance/' directory by changing all entries of the '/var/run/applogic/' path to '/root/applogic_backup/'
  2. Update the '/etc/applogic' symbolic link to point to the '/root/applogic_backup/'
  3. Update the '/etc/applogic.csh' and '/etc/applogic.sh' symbolic links to point to the files in '/root/applogic_backup/' directory.
  4. Update the configuration files in the '/root/applogic_backup/' directory with the proper configuration settings and device names.