Student Guide¶
Version 0.9.6 · draft · 2026-10-17 · class/student-guide.md
What you will learn¶
You take a real Windows Server + PostgreSQL VM from VMware vSphere onto Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization, cold and then warm. You move it between two OpenShift clusters and protect it with OpenShift Data Foundation disaster recovery. At every step you write your own data into the VM's database and prove that none of it was lost, changed or reordered.
This guide is the map. The steps are in the demo guides below.
Your login, and what you need¶
The instructor gives you your login. One student username and one password open everything in this class:
| Resource | Sign in as |
|---|---|
| vSphere Client (vCenter) and both OpenShift consoles | your class ID, with SSO (Entra) |
| Your Windows VM | .\student-NN |
| Your VM's PostgreSQL database | student_NN |
All you need is a web browser. Nothing is installed on your computer. You work in the vSphere Client, the two OpenShift consoles, and your browser terminal: a shell in your own pod in the OpenShift console, where every command in these guides runs. Copy a command here with its copy button; paste it there with right-click → Paste.
Lab 0 walks you through it in about 5 minutes: open the tabs, sign in to vCenter, both OpenShift clusters and PostgreSQL, and see your VM and your access.
💡 A page stuck after a timeout? Sign in again in a private window. Nothing is lost: your VM, your data and your terminal live in the lab, not in the browser.
How the lab is put together¶
Each class gets its own three environments (lab diagram):
| Environment | What it is | You |
|---|---|---|
| vSphere | vCenter + ESXi, where your VM starts | inspect your VM, enable CBT, shut it down |
| Site A | OpenShift + OpenShift Virtualization + MTV, on ODF storage | migrate your VM in, run it, snapshot it |
| Site B | the same on NFS storage, plus the ACM / DR hub | move your VM in, fail over to it |
The zone names (lz1, ocp-lz1, …) change per booking; the guides use them as examples. Your browser terminal already
knows your own (type ovedr).
- Your own VM,
win-pg-s<NN>: a full copy of the instructor's, with its own address, in your own vCenter folder. You power it, snapshot it, migrate it and fail it over yourself. - Your own namespace on both clusters, named your class ID, where you are admin. Your VM lands there, and your browser terminal lives there.
- Everything is staged; you do the last step. Each demo's pieces (operators, maps, a migration plan for your VM) are pre-built, and each guide shows how to build them yourself (Lab S). Your task is to review and start.
The demos, in order¶
Every stage follows one rhythm: inject your own data → change something → verify it all arrived intact.
Core: the migration class. Everyone does these, in order.
| # | Guide | You will | Time | Bonus (optional) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Access and tools | sign in to vCenter, both clusters and PostgreSQL; open a command line | 5 min | — |
| 1 | Cold migration | check your plan and the vCenter link; shut down, migrate, review and power on in OpenShift; inject and read back your rows | 2 h (the copy alone is about 1 h 30) | 1b: live and storage migration (20 min) · 1c: cross-cluster migration (45 min) · 1a and 5 again on your Windows VM |
| 2 | Warm migration with storage copy offload | 🚧 coming soon (read only): needs a SAN array this lab doesn't have yet. Why the lab dropped VDDK; the array copies the disks while the VM runs; cut over; snapshot on the array | — | — |
While your copy runs (Demo 1 §1.3 sends you here; about 1 h 20 in all), on a new cloud-native server: 1d: a cloud-native golden image (30 min) → 1a: snapshot and restore (20 min) → Demo 5: OADP backup and restore (30 min, if your lab has OADP) → delete that server, back to Demo 1 §1.4 to start your migrated Windows VM.
💡 Two classes use these guides. VM Hosting Alternative to VMware (demo-0002) has one OpenShift cluster (site A) and stops after migration, snapshot and OADP backup: it has no site B, so Demos 1c and 4 and the site B fallback aren't in it. VMware Migration & BCDR (demo-0024) has both sites and everything below.
Go deeper, when your instructor offers it (demo-0024):
| Group | Guide | You will | Time | Bonus (optional) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Storage | Demo 4: ODF Regional-DR | replicate every 15 minutes, fail over, reverse, come home clean | 90 min | §4.8 hostile failover (30 min) |
| Backup | Demo 5: OADP backup and restore | back up your namespace, delete your VM, restore it, prove the data | 30 min | framework: when OADP is staged |
Reference: Toolkit (your terminal and the data commands) · Lab S (how every staged piece was built, with the commands and the Red Hat docs) · Lab diagram.
Times are estimates until the class has been timed. Every demo ends the same way: you read your rows back, and
ovedr_verify shows chain_ok = t. That read-back is your evidence that nothing was lost.
Getting help: a step marked [verify] is still being proven in the lab. If one fails, tell the instructor rather than improvising. Each section has a 🎬 recording of the same steps in the console.
Red Hat documentation: OpenShift Virtualization · MTV 2.11 · ODF · ODF disaster recovery · ACM · DO316 training · Red Hat interactive labs