Physical to Virtual

[garethEds]

Has anyone here used the VMWare Physical to Virtual application?

 

If so would could they detail their experiences? I want to virtualise some of our servers but have never done it before - I'm just playing at the moment. If it works well then hey ho I'll keep them virtual LOL.

 

Many thanks

 

Gareth

[ranj]

Excellent thread, I am looking into doing this as well. Is there a sepearate application which does P2V migration. Is this app free?

[FN-GM]

I have used VMware converter, it has worked excellent for me. One bit of advice never use it on a DC you can cause problems with replication and end up with 2 different versions of AD.

[jj99]

We did a domain migration, and we used vmware conveter to take a copy of all the old servers to run a practice on.

 

We had 12 running on 1 in the end it was brilliant! They ran better than the real things.Both the test and the migration were very succesfuly.

 

We curently looking at virtulsing all our lesser servers still think i want to keep my DC's and file servers "real"

[EduTech]

We have also used vmWare converter, excellent peice of software, has worked a treat for us. done about 6 servers with it

 

recommend it

 

James.

[meastaugh1]

Those of you that have successfully run Converter on production systems, did you run it hot or cold? When running a hot conversion on database servers (eg SQL, Exchange), is it advisable to stop the services (assuming it's already disconnected from the network to prevent users changing data)?

[PiqueABoo]

never use it on a DC you can cause problems with replication and end up with 2 different versions of AD

 

You can cause problems with a DC on real hardware. Are you saying that because of your recent USN rollback problem? I didn't really read those threads or get what had happened to cause it, but I can't think of a reason for it that isn't avoidable.

 

is it advisable to stop the services

 

Yes, in the same way it's advisable to stop as many services as you can before taking a full backup you want to restore to the same machine. Cold-cloning is the obvious extension of that precaution - if you can do it cold, then do it cold.

 

--

 

More generally time can be an issue so it's worth reading about ... there's a lovely, complicated VMWare paper on that somewhere.

[DAckroyd]

We moved across to VMware before christmas (lucky timing as one server's hardware died the same week as the transfer). We has http://www.coniston.co.uk/ do the install (and have had them dothe same at where I worked previously).

 

Few things to note:

1) NT 4 servers don't go across well and if you cold clone they need more than 128MB RAM (that server remains physical for now)

2) when P2Ving any problems that were on your servers previously remain on them on the new system.

3) Hyper-V server 2008 is FREE! (and good)

4) MS server licening allows you to buy 1 standard edition with Hyper-V and install 1 Virtual Free, Enterprise 1 physical + 4 VM's, Datacenter edition (Per CPU not per server) gives you 1 physical licence and unlimited VM's (compatible with VMware systems)

5) Microsoft Virtual Machine Manager 2008 is good - will manage both VMware, Virtual Server and Hyper-V servers from the same consol.

6) someone said they had moved 11 servers onto 1 machine - have at least 2 and if using VMware setup V-Motion will load-balance and give redundancy (as long as VM's are stored on shared storage/SAN)

7) if you are worried about loosing your servers forever have a nice cheap server sat as a physical Active Directory G.Cat server as backup then have all over servers on VM's - management is much easier.

8) If you aren't sure about what you are getting, goto another place that is already using a similar setup - it's getting alot more common now.

9) If you don't want to kill the whole system in the process of transfering it pay someone to do the install - a competant company will run you through the setup so you know what's happening for future but gives you less worries during the innitial install.

10) on exchange and the likes stop the services (and if your exchange server is a DC also look at taking that role off it at the same time - if you have problems in the future it restricts what you can do to fix it)

11) Don't forget to set the Virtual Centre Server to Auto boot first so you can use the VI Client if you loose your servers rather than having to use the web consol (VI Client Foundation only has restrictions of number of hosts it can manage {MAX 3 Hosts} - ESX3.5 you want enterprise edition to gain all features)

 

These are just one or two things to remember when setting up Virtual system for the first time - mind is now starting to go blank at this early hour so I'll leave it at that.

 

Hope this helps,

Dave

[tmcd35]

3) Hyper-V server 2008 is FREE! (and good)

Can't believe this, but I'm actually seriously looking at Hyper-V here!

 

4) MS server licening allows you to buy 1 standard edition with Hyper-V and install 1 Virtual Free, Enterprise 1 physical + 4 VM's, Datacenter edition (Per CPU not per server) gives you 1 physical licence and unlimited VM's (compatible with VMware systems)

MS-Server Licensing:

Standard = 1Physical + 1 Virtual on the same hardware

Enterprise = 1Physical + 4 Virtual on the same hardware

Datacenter = 1Physical + Unlimited Virtual on the same hardware.

You need 1 copy of datacenter for each CPU in the physical hardware.

 

So if you have 3 physical servers with 2 CPU's each. You'll need 6 copies of Datacenter to run unlimited VM's on those machines. 1 Copy of Enterprise will allow 4 VM's on 1 machine. 3 Copies of Enterprise will allow 4 VMs on each server, 12 VMs on one server or 8 VM's on 1 server and 4VM's on another.

 

5) Microsoft Virtual Machine Manager 2008 is good - will manage both VMware, Virtual Server and Hyper-V servers from the same consol.

About £500?

 

6) someone said they had moved 11 servers onto 1 machine - have at least 2 and if using VMware setup V-Motion will load-balance and give redundancy (as long as VM's are stored on shared storage/SAN)

Under VMWare - VMotion and High Availability require a seperate server running the Management Console, costs about a £1000 for the software. VMotion also requires an additional license. They also require the paid for ESX not the free ESXi download.

 

Thus the reason for looking seriously at Hyper-V. All this will be free and built into Hyper-V in Windows 2K8-R2!

 

11) Don't forget to set the Virtual Centre Server to Auto boot first so you can use the VI Client if you loose your servers rather than having to use the web consol (VI Client Foundation only has restrictions of number of hosts it can manage {MAX 3 Hosts} - ESX3.5 you want enterprise edition to gain all features)

The VI Client works fine without Virtual Center Server. You just point it at the ESX hosts individually. If you don't need (or can't afford) V-Motion and HA, then Virtual Center Server is possibly a luxury you don't need. This is the setup I had at the last place.

[FN-GM]

@piuqeboo

 

It wasn't a conversion that caused the problem not sure how it happened to be honest. My servers have been virtual for months and where clean installs of windows server and premoted to a DC.

[DAckroyd]

Can't believe this, but I'm actually seriously looking at Hyper-V here!

 

 

MS-Server Licensing:

Standard = 1Physical + 1 Virtual on the same hardware

Enterprise = 1Physical + 4 Virtual on the same hardware

Datacenter = 1Physical + Unlimited Virtual on the same hardware.

You need 1 copy of datacenter for each CPU in the physical hardware.

 

So if you have 3 physical servers with 2 CPU's each. You'll need 6 copies of Datacenter to run unlimited VM's on those machines. 1 Copy of Enterprise will allow 4 VM's on 1 machine. 3 Copies of Enterprise will allow 4 VMs on each server, 12 VMs on one server or 8 VM's on 1 server and 4VM's on another.

 

That sounds about right - also didn't mention that you can run ANY current and previous version of windows under the datacentre licenceb (want to return to windows 3.11? is that too new? or enterprise edition of Vista (with SA or 2008R2 licence win7 should be included in the same way)

 

The cost of VMM2008 is dependant on the type of licencing you buy into - you may be looking at as little as £45 per year if you're on schools agreement

Try downloading it from Technet

 

Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V looks like it's getting some good features (I don't thing that will have fully seamless migration but it's still Live migration)

[gshaw]

Might be good to mention what hardware you're going for to run the virtualised servers as well? I' m thinking of Hyper-V for application servers and the like (still prefer Exchange and SQL on physical ones for now) but interested to hear what level of kit people are running it all on

[MK-2]

I'm using VMware converter to back up our servers prior to RM coming in, so if anything happens I have quick access to data rather than having to rely on tapes to restore data.

Not planning on using it to run virtual servers yet, but two of our servers are old and do very little so am tempted to virtualise them

[DAckroyd]

Might be good to mention what hardware you're going for to run the virtualised servers as well? I' m thinking of Hyper-V for application servers and the like (still prefer Exchange and SQL on physical ones for now) but interested to hear what level of kit people are running it all on

 

Our install before Christmas got us everything down to a new cab (All HP):

2x DL380 Servers [2x quad core Xeon's @ 2.5GHz; 26GB RAM, 2x 74GB SAS 15k rpm drives mirrored] - ESX Hosts

1x DL120 dualcore xeon 3GB RAM - physical 2k8 server holding copy of AD just in case

1x MSA2000 with 12x450GB HDD's 15k RPM

 

with install under £35,000 - VMware Licences was one of the larger costs as was the MSA

 

 

note for anyone looking to get a setup in the next half year to a year: Intel are unvailing their 8-core(+hyperthreading) Xeons this month (build on the same technology as Core i7). Perfect CPU for a virtual server host.

[tmcd35]

note for anyone looking to get a setup in the next half year to a year: Intel are unvailing their 8-core(+hyperthreading) Xeons this month (build on the same technology as Core i7). Perfect CPU for a virtual server host.

 

Just been looking at my 5-year development plan with the head, went very well , new servers are due to start rolling in around 2011 onwards. I'm positively salivating at the possible specs I'll be buying then! Dual Xeons, 16-Cores, 32-Threads, Ooooooh.

[DAckroyd]

Just been looking at my 5-year development plan with the head, went very well , new servers are due to start rolling in around 2011 onwards. I'm positively salivating at the possible specs I'll be buying then! Dual Xeons, 16-Cores, 32-Threads, Ooooooh.

 

If you're planning for that point in time allow for at least 4-way Xeon systems (which by then may be 16 cores each (32-threads each) - 64core CPU's)

 

also by them the new samsung chips should be on the market (4GB per memory chip) prodicted 32GB per stick of RAM

 

Also possibly solid state storage (or at least in your hosts)

[tmcd35]

@DAckroyd STOP IT! I'm gonna make a mess in my... Too late

[garethEds]

Might be good to mention what hardware you're going for to run the virtualised servers as well? I' m thinking of Hyper-V for application servers and the like (still prefer Exchange and SQL on physical ones for now) but interested to hear what level of kit people are running it all on

 

Well when we were with RM we purchased a new forsest root server which was fitted with 1Tb of drive space and 4Gb or RAM. Two Gb NICS and twin Xeon processors. I hope it is enought to run the following:

 

1 x Print server - this is currently running on an old RM second forest root

1 x RIS Server - not sure how these fit into a virtual scenario

1 x Application Server - this houses our Successmaker Enterprise files and our Sibelius licence (and WSUS)

1 x Exam server- running the WJEC Secure Assess software

 

 

The main reason for doing this is increasing our green credentials and reducing the backup procedures.

 

Out of interest - what are the benefits of going to virtual servers? How have people done it? I see myself creating each server, backing up them up to an off site location (DVD at home probably LOL Or NAS) and then running them. EVery big change means a new backup of the container file.

 

Never done this before.

 

Gareth

[DAckroyd]

if that is the spec of the machine you want as your host them look at upping the number of NIC's (I have 10 per host (2 on board, 2 cards of 4xgigabit). Alternativly you could look at 10Gbe cards to add in if you have the central switch to go with that.

 

Not sure where you plan to store the data either? 1TB if you are running Hyper-V and only on one server should be ok, might even beable to sync that to a second server if you have a second for the job but you'll want to look at a SAN at some point

 

 

Our reason for going virtual was because of the cost involved in upgrading our current servers (it worked out to cost about the same as 3 or 4 new desent spec servers). it also means I have a test enviroment for setting up our new domain (currently got about 10 new servers - wouldn't have that many with physical machins due to cost. we also have some xp and a windows 7 machine running on it. we should also see a bit of a drop in energy bills for both cooling and electricity

[gshaw]

The main question now I guess is Hyper-V or VMWare?

 

I'm thinking of trying to get the print server, basic app server onto one of our quicker boxes (currently runs on some 1U Opteron boxes with 1GB RAM and SATA HDs). Was thinking Hyper-V with local storage but to go for it properly would need some beefier kit.

 

Will be an interesting plan for next few years though as these servers we have now are 3yrs old (time flies ) and with Evesham junking the warranties the replacement might come sooner rather than later

[Theblacksheep]

3) Hyper-V server 2008 is FREE! (and good)

 

It put me off doing updates and seeing IE7 (not part of core) being downloaded and installed.

 

Why are patches for non-core parts required for 'core'?

Why is its install size so large?

MS recommend only one VM per lun?

Hyper-V is also paravirtualized

Edited February 3, 2009 by Theblacksheep

[garethEds]

if that is the spec of the machine you want as your host them look at upping the number of NIC's (I have 10 per host (2 on board, 2 cards of 4xgigabit). Alternativly you could look at 10Gbe cards to add in if you have the central switch to go with that.

 

Not sure where you plan to store the data either? 1TB if you are running Hyper-V and only on one server should be ok, might even beable to sync that to a second server if you have a second for the job but you'll want to look at a SAN at some point

 

 

Our reason for going virtual was because of the cost involved in upgrading our current servers (it worked out to cost about the same as 3 or 4 new desent spec servers). it also means I have a test enviroment for setting up our new domain (currently got about 10 new servers - wouldn't have that many with physical machins due to cost. we also have some xp and a windows 7 machine running on it. we should also see a bit of a drop in energy bills for both cooling and electricity

 

Gaps in my knowledge here. I am familiar with the VMWare range, Windows Virtual Server and Virtual Box. I have not read much on HYper-V 2008 - any pointers on this would be welcome.

 

The user data is stored on a server provided by our LEA - I would not want to virtualise that as it is outside of our control. We look after it but are not allowed to break it.

 

The servers I am going to virtualise are going to be spare so I guess I could double up the servers and run two physical servers to one store a few virtual servers - until we get to purchase or add bits to our main server.

 

Thanks for the advice - looking forward to getting my teeth stuck in.

 

Gareth

[tmcd35]

Hyper-V is microsofts version of ESX(i) or Xen. A bare metal hypervisor. It requires a 64bit processor with Intel-VT and XD-bit support or AMD-V and ND-bit support. It is shipped as part of Windows 2008 Server (Hyper-V v1) or Windows 2008 Server R2 (Hyper-V v2).

 

I believe there is a bare bones free download version as well. provides just enough of Win2k8 to install Hyper-V and setup VM's via command prompt.

 

Windows 2008 Server include fail-over clustering which in turn gives High Availability support to the VM's. v2 includes microsofts version of 'vMotion', tranfering VM's between hosts without powerdown.

 

Because of this, basically free within Win2k8r2, it is a very compelling solution when compared to how much you'd payout on the VMWare licenses to do the same job. Thus why I'm seriously looking at MS VM's here.

[Theblacksheep]

Windows 2008 Server include fail-over clustering which in turn gives High Availability support to the VM's. v2 includes microsofts version of 'vMotion', tranfering VM's between hosts without powerdown.

 

Because of this, basically free within Win2k8r2, it is a very compelling solution when compared to how much you'd payout on the VMWare licenses to do the same job.

 

You dont need vmotion to do live migrations with Vi3 or ESXi.... it can be done with scripts.

 

You still need enterprise edition of server 2008 for live migrations (relies on clusters).

Edited February 3, 2009 by Theblacksheep

[Butuz]

Hi Gareth. Glad to see you too are interested in Virtualisation.

 

I've been using VMWare ESXi 3.5 (the free version) to some testing with regards to Virtualisation and P2V. On the whole I am very impressed with the way VMWare and Converter works - I have tried converting XP Workstations, CC3 Workstations, CC3 Terminal Servers and Vanilla Windows servers and all have worked correctly.

 

In the short term, over the next year or two depending on funding, we are looking to virtualise 5 or 6 of our physical servers (not our CC3 domain controllers). Unless I get a big budget hike, I am going to be using the free version VMWare ESXi 3.5 coupled with a SAN of some kind. Now I had planned the SAN to be an off the shelf iSCSI box such as Adaptec Snap Server or a HP 2000i. But having just discovered "Openfiler" I am going to install that on a test workstation to try it out.

 

I think the SAN is really important as one of the biggest benefits of virtualisation is divorcing the software from the hardware, and if you use local storage in your physical hosts, you are not divorcing the Virtual Machines from your physical host's hardware. If your RAID array fails, or the server fails, you are stuck with not being able to access that storage or those virtual images until that physical host is repaired.

 

With a SAN however, if a physical host is lost, you can simply connect another physical host up to the SAN and get your VM's back up and running quickly. If course, this puts lots of reliance on the SAN - but your SAN should be specified with hot spare drives, redundant PSU's etc, and also it should be a big iron server from a big name manufacturer, with the required same day/next day support. You should also make sure all SAN data is mirrored onto another SAN, or NAS, just incase!

 

I am planning to use three of our existing servers as virtual hosts, plugged into the SAN, and then convert our servers onto the virtual hosts.

 

Hope this helps!

 

Andrew