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P to V tips and/or hints?

boss99

boss99

2[H]4U
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Joined
Dec 29, 2006
Messages
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Hello all,

I'm getting ready to replicate my client's environment virtually and he has two servers:

1. Windows 2003 Std 64 with 8 GB RAM, running Terminal Server and functions as the DC for the domain.

2. Server 2008 with 4 GB RAM, running SQL 2005 and functions as the licensing server for Terminal Server on 2003 box. Also running business app for orders, inventory, POS, etc.

What I'd like to do is virtualize both boxes and set them up on a ESXi server at my house for testing and possible DR.

I've read about the VMWare vcenter converter, but is there anything I need to watch out for? I'm going to be running this in off hours after the backups complete, so I won't have to worry about data changing, but is there anything I should watch out for? Maybe what potential problems can crop up? Thanks all for your help.

About 6 months ago, I went from being curious about virtualization and the technology associated with it to loving it and wanting to add it to my technical lexicon and this forum has been a huge help to me. Thanks again.
 
The only problem I have encountered thus far with the VMware converter is it doesn't speak linux MD raid at all. Now, there may be some work around but I just haven't bothered to research it yet.

I haven't done any P2V winders servers yet though. I have done a few V2V conversions from Xen to Vmware and those went flawlessly though. I imagine P2V should work the same.

Just make sure you have the space available at the destination. Under the advanced you can also adjust the size of the destination disks if you want/need to to help that process. The VConverter is a really nice piece of software though.
 
Awesome. Thanks for the heads up.

Does it have to export directly into an ESX host or can I shoot it out to a network drive?
 
I'm not positive on that. Could swear I read it has the ability to dump to local storage for an offsite type conversion but I haven't done that or researched it. Although I need to because I have some of those types of conversions coming up soon.

I'll look into it and see what I can dig up.
 
So I may be confused what you mean. Selecting a destination for where the guest will go can be either a single host, a resource pool, or a cluster. You can also select what storage pool you want it to reside in.

If you meant like an offsite P2V where you convert the server and then dump the vmx and vmkd files before bringing them into the vmware world ... don't think you can do that. Your easiest route there is likely to make a backup of c:, d:, etc and copy the backup images to some location and then run the P2V conversion using those backup images as the source.

Seems like there has to be a way to do that though.
 
Maybe what I can do is build a dummy ESXi server with the intent of wiping it, but P->V the guests to it and just copy off the files.
 
You won't want to P2V the DC while it's up and running, use the bootable version of converter to do it. Probably safer to do the SQL box the same way, but you can get away with just stopping the services and P2Ving it live.
 
I can do that, since it'll be off hours anyways. How long do you think it'd take?
 
Depends on how much used disk you actually have, I did a 15 GB box in 15 minutes this morning, I think the last 300 GB box I did took around 3 hours.
 
depends on the source size. The largest P2V i've done thus far was 40gb over 1gigE. Idk exactly how long it took somewhere in the range of 10-15 minutes.
 
I tracked the P2V times for around 20 machines. i will post them tomorrow when I get in the office.
 
Thanks for the help all.

I'm going to maybe shoot for doing this at night after the backups run.

With some luck, maybe I'll be done in a couple hours with minimal downtime for the servers. I hope to get the owner to fund my home server for DR/testing purposes, as well as my own. :D
 
Now most these conversions were done to our SAN thats just slow to begin with but might give you some ideas

conversion_times.png
 
Had big problems with HP/Dell management tools when P2V'ing. Make sure you disable them from starting up otherwise I have seen an hour+ delay when making the intial boot as a VM.
 
"I'm going to be running this in off hours after the backups complete"
Listen to the opinions of others is important.I have to learn more.
 
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