VM /ETC

Archive for the ‘P2V’ Category

VMware has just released the latest version of it’s free, stand alone physical to virtual (P2V) migration tool, vCenter Converter 4. I’ve been using this version for customer P2V migrations since it was publicly available as a Beta, and I have been extremely impressed. With several features not available in any previous release (including the Enterprise version included as a plugin of vCenter 2.5), I strongly recommend VI admins download a copy of vCenter Converter 4 Standalone.

Check out the new features listed in the Release Notes:

The VMware vCenter Converter Standalone release adds several new features including:

• Physical to virtual machine conversion support for Linux (RHEL, SUSE and Ubuntu) as source
• Physical to virtual machine conversion support for Windows Server 2008 as source
• Hot cloning improvements to clone any incremental changes to physical machine during the P2V conversion process
• Support for converting new third-party image formats including Parallels Desktop virtual machines, newer versions of Symantec, Acronis, and StorageCraft
• Workflow automation enhancements to include automatic source shutdown, automatic start-up of the destination virtual machine as well as shutting down one or more services at the source and starting up selected services at the destination
• Target disk selection and the ability to specify how the volumes are laid out in the new destination virtual machine
• Destination virtual machine configuration, including CPU, memory, and disk controller type

Let em re-emphasize some of the features that I find to be “game changers” for a free P2V migration product. Read the rest of this entry »

Most physical to virtual migrations (P2V) of servers end up as virtual machines with the partitions encapsulated in virtual disk (.vmdk or .vhd) files. But what if the physical server already has a partition that’s configured through an iSCSI connection to the SAN, and what if that’s the same SAN that the new VM will run on? Of course, the new VM will have to be on a different LUN (formatted for use by the virtualization host), but should you encapsulate the current NTFS iSCSI partition or should you maintain the iSCSI initiator within the resulting VM? The former option depends on how much available SAN space you have to work with, the latter requires some extra thinking before you begin.

When you decide to maintain a server’s existing iSCSI partitions as a VM, there are several configuration considerations to plan for.
Read the rest of this entry »

A large percentage of VMware administrators have already used VMware Converter to conduct physical to virtual (p2v) migrations of their physical servers. For some reason though, VMware Converter always seems to be overlooked as a tool to accomplish virtual to virtual (v2v) conversions to an ESX target. Not only can you accomplish v2v migrations, but you can use VMware Converter to cross multiple vendor or incompatible virtualization host platforms.

For example, any of the following virtualization products running a Windows VM can be v2v -ed to an ESX host  with VMware Converter:

• ESX 2.x
• ESX 3.x / ESXi 3.x
• Virtual Server 1.x or 2.x
• Hyper-V
• XenServer
• any of the hosted desktop products including (but not limited to) VMware Workstation and Fusion, Microsoft Virtual PC, and Sun xVM VirtualBox.

How and why is this possible? Read the rest of this entry »

Since P2V conversions with VMware Converter have been on my mind (and my schedule!) the last few months I figured I’d go ahead and discuss the best practices for troubleshooting failed P2V migrations of Windows physical machines to VMware virtual infrastructure. This post copies VMware KB article Best Practices using VMware Converter but with my own experience and opinions thrown in here and there.

I want all readers to understand that all of the recommendations listed are not always necessary, but instead should be systematically tried as needed when experiencing troubles. Most P2V migrations with VMware Converter “just work” without any issues. Use these steps to troubleshoot that small percentage of conversions that fail without an obvious explanation. Read the rest of this entry »

VMware Communities: VMware Converter 4.0 Standalone Public … is the link to the VMware Communities web page with information for signing up for the VMware Converter 4.0 public beta. I first heard about this from Eric Sloof’s NTPRO.NL blog last week, but I’ve actually downloaded the stand alone beta version and will be experimenting with it this week. From the Communities page, here are the instructions for signing up.

~~ Getting Started ~~
If you already have a VMware store account, please follow the link below to
gain access to Converter 4.0 beta software, documentation and join the
Converter 4.0 beta community.

http://www.vmware.com/publicbeta/conv4-beta

If you don’t have a VMware store account, please follow the link below to create
a VMware store account, gain access to Converter 4.0 beta software,
documentation and join Converter 4.0 beta community.

http://www.vmware.com/publicbetanew/conv4-beta

These links have been randomly available. In fact, when I tried last week i was unable to access these pages, but today I was able to get through and download the users guide, release notes, and both the Windows and Linux versions of converter.

The Release Notes describe some exciting nw features. Read the rest of this entry »

While troubleshooting poor performing VMs this week I was explaining to a customer the process of trying to downgrade the multi processor HAL of a Windows VM that was created by a P2V migration with VMware Converter. I ended up sending them a link to an older VMware Communities forum thread in which Mike Laverick of RTFM Education provides a quick how to guide. I also wrote (and sent the customer) a post earlier this year that offers similar advice, but P2V multi processor servers to single processor VMs instructs you to install a patch specifically for Windows Server 2003 VMs which then allows you to downgrade to a single processor.

The other difference worth mentioning between these two posts is the links to the Microsoft DevCon tool. Although VMware will not officially support using this tool on VMs, using this utility for forcing a HAL downgrade is possible when all else fails.

Check out the following instructions copied here and the various links in this post for more information. Read the rest of this entry »

While attempting to clean up unnecessary virtual hardware after several P2V migrations this week, I was unable to remove the virtual USB Controller from new virtual machines. I got an uneditable device warning pop up window that said “Internal problem: The system information reported by the host for ‘VirtualUSBController’ is inconsistent. This device cannot currently be edited.”

Read the rest of this entry »