The procedure outlined by you is perfect. But it involves lot of time.  Please Note: CIFS server can be moved from Physical DM to VDM and viceversa.  My version of the Migration: 1.Move CIFS server on Physical to a VDM- This helps in moving all the local groups along with it.(Follow emc170111) 2.You just need to Unmount the filesystem used by shares from Physical  DM to VDM-Once done confirm every thing is fine. 3. Then replicate the VDM to the new Celerra and then the filesystem. 4. If you want the CIFS server to be on Physical DM, Then you can move the CIFS server from VDM to Physical DM.  This Procedure will save atleast 50-60% of your time compared to your procedure. I suggest you to give a thought on this.
 Rainer, Dynamox, Sandip Nanda & others,  Can you please validate this migration plan of a CIFS server (along everything like shares, local groups, fileystems) from Celerra to Celerra. The requirement is that the name of the cifs server should remain same. No exceptions. Source and Destination Celerra's are in same domain. All share permissions, security, attributes, local groups should remain the same. CIFS server name at source is "CLEARDATA". The goal is to migrate this server to destination celerra and everything but IP should change.  Step 1: Create a new CIFS server at destination Celerra and name it "CLEARDATATEMP". Step 2: Copy all local groups from CLEARDATA to CLEARDATATEMP using lgdup. Step 3: Copy all shares from CLEARDATA to CLEARDATATEMP using sharedup. Step 4: Replicate FS belonging to CLEARDATA to CLEARDATATEMP using Celerra FS replication, after replication is complete, disconnect replication session and make destination FS Read/Write. Mount FS on CLEARDATATEMP. At this point this this server should be exactly same as CLEARDATA.  Step 5: Compare if CLEARDATATEMP is exact replica of CLEARDATA. Step 5: Delete CLEARDATA at source celerra. Step 6: Create new CIFS server at destination Celerra and name it CLEARDATA Step 7: Copy Local groups from CLEARDATATEMP to CLEARDATA. Step 8: Copy all shares from CLEARDATATEMP to CLEARDATA. Step 9: Unmount all FS from CLEARDATATEMP and mount on CLEARDATA.  Please validate this plan and suggest any changes/missing steps. As always: I cannot thank you enough for your help.
Celerra migration without VDM