Physical to virtual copy

[Sandman]

The people at Xtravirt have a huge knowledge directory which might be helpful with this.

White papers etc.

[Theblacksheep]

Maybe I will leave it for the next holiday as I don't fancy stopping the Exchange server during term time. Thanks anyway.

I used VMware converter (4) just before the holiday on an exchange 2003 box:

2000 users
3 disks (8 (thanks RM), 20, 120 gb)
1 network card
1 scsi adapter
3.5 gb ram
2 quad cpu

Took 6 hours to copy over and resize the disks (16, 20, 80).

Another hour or two to remove old hadware, optimise and test.

[leco]

I would do it in a holiday if i was you, no point in trying to rush it

My thoughts also.

i know some people find vmware server 2 to be a pain as its web based,

I think that's where I came unstuck, web-based seemed like a good idea, but I couldn't connect to my virtual machines half the time so gave up in the end. Very much a case of what you are used to working in or with.

but try vmware server 1.x.x virtual machines by default get saved to c:\virtual machines

If you need any help feel free to pm or email me.

James.

Thanks James, might have another look at VMWare version 1 and compare with what I have now in MS.

[leco]

I used VMware converter (4) just before the holiday on an exchange 2003 box:

2000 users
3 disks (8 (thanks RM), 20, 120 gb)
1 network card
1 scsi adapter
3.5 gb ram
2 quad cpu

Took 6 hours to copy over and resize the disks (16, 20, 80).

Another hour or two to remove old hadware, optimise and test.

Definitely one for the next holiday then. Does VMware do the re-sizing as well?
Thanks.

[leco]

The people at Xtravirt have a huge knowledge directory which might be helpful with this.

White papers etc.

Just had a quick look, very interesting, thanks. Lots of useful information to digest

[EduTech]

Definitely one for the next holiday then. Does VMware do the re-sizing as well?
Thanks.

Yes vmware does do re-sizing

James.

[Sandman]

Just had a quick look, very interesting, thanks. Lots of useful information to digest

No probs.. they are increasing the output of their white papers in the upcoming months so there will be lots more good info soon

[Innovation_Dan]

Here's what we use in production environments...

ESXi server, free download from Vmware. A little picky on hardware tho, so make sure your test server can run it. Also, get as much RAM as you can in it.

Install VMWare Converter (also free) on the computers you want to clone to virtual, and in a local console on that machine convert it over to the ESXi server.

Configure the ESXi server's networking with a virtual switch that is not attached to a physical NIC. (Host only networking, in other words). Or, you could let the virtual computers talk to a NIC but keep it off the network, just so you could get RDP into your little virtual network. The VI client is a little slow.

ESXi is great, super fast and stable. We've really been enjoying it a lot. We were trying to run Vmware Server on a linux platform before, but it was dog slow and prone to weird crashes and time sync errors. Since we converted over to ESXi it's just been a dream.