Citrix XenServer, Migrating Physical Server to Virtual

[Tech1]

Hi,

 

Has anyone on here migrated a physical server to a virtual one before?

 

We've purchased a server more powerful than we actually need so we are planning on virtualising a couple of our physical servers into the one box.

 

I have installed Citrix Xenserver on the new machine, and created a new VM via Citrix XenCenter. I have a full windows server backup of the physical server, which I am able to restore to the VM using windows restore, but then after restarting I am just getting the BSOD.

 

I have run the system repair tools and done fixboot/mbr which doesn't resolve the issue.

 

I am running Windows Server 2008r2 if that's any help.

 

Appreciate an help given.

[IrritableTech]

I've successfully virtualised a 2003 server using xenconvert. It worked perfectly.

 

You don't need to create a new machine on the xenserver, the xenconvert creates it for you. It was a really painless experience, only needing to assign IPs to the new nics detected by the VM OS.

 

I haven't tried it with w2008 though.

[Tech1]

I tried XenConvert a couple of weeks ago, with great difficulty unfortunately. The current physical server is running out of space, and to perform the convert we needed the same amount of space available to create the VHD, (the server is nearly 500gb, so we would have needed another 500gb). I was able to do this to an external drive though.

 

The process took around 40hours and in the end just failed, with an error list as long as a book.

[Tech1]

Right, yesterday, using a utility called disk2vhd from tech net, I converted the old server into a VHD file (it took 6 hours). Now, I come to import the VHD file into the new server via XenCenter, and I get the error message "unknown file type"! How can it be an unknown file type? It's looking for either an OVA/OVF Package or a VHD file, and it is a VHD file. Very confusing.

 

ALso i've noticed that this thread should probably have been put in the Server 2008r2 forum.

[pete]

Right, yesterday, using a utility called disk2vhd from tech net, I converted the old server into a VHD file (it took 6 hours). Now, I come to import the VHD file into the new server via XenCenter, and I get the error message "unknown file type"! How can it be an unknown file type? It's looking for either an OVA/OVF Package or a VHD file, and it is a VHD file. Very confusing.

 

ALso i've noticed that this thread should probably have been put in the Server 2008r2 forum.

 

You're using the Disk Image Import routine, correct? (Select Xen host server in XenCenter, then Tools > Virtual Appliance Tools > Disk Image Import).

 

That works for Vmware, Virtualbox and .wim (converted from all successfully), and apparently for VHD (not tried).

[Tech1]

Their doesn't appear to be an option for Virtual Appliance Tools within Tools. To try the import, I right clicked on the XenServer and click on Import. Pointed to the VHD I wanted to import and then thats when I get the error message "Unknown File Type"

[Tech1]

It looks like they removed your method in an older version of XenCenter. I am using version 6.1 if that's any help.

[pete]

Yeah, we're on 5.6 SP2.

 

It looks like it was incorporated into XenServer Conversion Manager: XenServer Conversion Tools - Citrix

[Tech1]

I'm just using XenConvert 2.5 now to create a Citrix VHD to an external drive, which should hopefully do the trick. The only problem is the amount of time it takes to create the VHD.

[Tech1]

Yeah, we're on 5.6 SP2.

 

It looks like it was incorporated into XenServer Conversion Manager: XenServer Conversion Tools - Citrix

 

Just out of interest, is their any reason why you haven't upgraded to 6.1?

 

I'm just downloading 5.6 now, to see if that makes any difference. Now that I have used XenConvert to create a Citrix VHD, I no longer get the error message "Unknown File Type", so I do get a bit further in the import, and then it fails again.

 

Checking the logs it says - "Failed to import virtual disk file, system.xml.xmlException:Root Element Is Missing"

[bossman]

@Tech1:

 

Install version 6.0.2 not 6.1.0 as the latest version has a few bugs which are slowly getting ironed out.

 

Once you have it installed use XenServer conversion tool on the windows box and run through the wizard, I always use an intermediatary file storage which is on the network such as a NAS box or even a computer with enough space to create the files.

 

Just let the convert tool do its job and it will automatically create the VM with the settings you have initialised.

 

Have a look on youtube for P2V conversion using Xenconvert tool you should find plenty.

 

Good luck and let us know how you get on.

[Tech1]

Thanks Bossman, followed your instructions and the server has now been successfully migrated over to the XenServer.

 

I'm presuming you use XenServer yourself, but what do you use for backing up the VM's? We currently use WSB on the physical servers, which works well when we need to restore at a file level, but whats the best practice for the virtual servers?