Copying phyical machine to VM

Come on Burnsy, you're slipping :p

From the first paragraph:

Quickly and reliably convert local and remote physical machines into virtual machines without any disruption or downtime.

;)

- GP
 
It does depend on the source O/S. If it is really old Windows - (2000 and older), you'll need to cold clone [i.e. shut down and boot from a CD]. Windows 2003 onwards is fine.

What is the source machine running?
 
we use platespin migrate by novell, you can copy whilst the machine is online but sql needs to be stopped if its running. works great and a lot more managable (in my opinion) to vmwares converter :)
 
Vcentre converter will do a live move, it'll also sync changes that happen during the cloning process.
It'll even power down the source machine and power on the VM when it's done.

One thing to be aware of though is not so much a flaw in converter but a windows limitation: If the machine you're cloning has a static IP because the network adapter in the new VM is different hardware, windows will set it up in default settings, IE. DHCP. You can get round this by creating a static DHCP reservation for the same IP and MAC address, and manually set the virtual adapter MAC.

You might also get a warning about the same IP being configured on another adapter, because the driver shadow of the old physical adapter still remains. 99% of the time you can just ignore that and use driver cleanup tools to get rid of it.
 
Skidilliplop said:
Vcentre converter will do a live move, it'll also sync changes that happen during the cloning process.
It'll even power down the source machine and power on the VM when it's done.

One thing to be aware of though is not so much a flaw in converter but a windows limitation: If the machine you're cloning has a static IP because the network adapter in the new VM is different hardware, windows will set it up in default settings, IE. DHCP. You can get round this by creating a static DHCP reservation for the same IP and MAC address, and manually set the virtual adapter MAC.

You might also get a warning about the same IP being configured on another adapter, because the driver shadow of the old physical adapter still remains. 99% of the time you can just ignore that and use driver cleanup tools to get rid of it.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that. I'm copying though, not converting as I need a test system of a live production system with no downtime. Downtime for a global system is rather difficult.
 
That'll be fine then, just be careful with AD. You'll need to rename the virtual machine offline and possibly generate a new SID if it's going back onto the same domain.

But should be fine :)
 
Skidilliplop said:
That'll be fine then, just be careful with AD. You'll need to rename the virtual machine offline and possibly generate a new SID if it's going back onto the same domain.

But should be fine :)
Click to expand...

Nope, not going on the same domain, but you raise a good point about AD integration issues.
 
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