Internal data transfer between VM's without networking?

[KWKirchner]

So here is the scenario:

ESXi v5.0 Cluster (7 Hosts)

Windows 7 "Control" VM - heavily locked down, isolated VLAN

Windows 7 "Normal" VM - typical office PC, full network access, but not to "Control" PC VLAN.

vMA 5.0 Appliance

The "Control" PC's are the way they are and cannot be modified.  They exist currently as physical boxes with CD-RW drives and that is how the "reports" they produce are migrated to the regular network.  We want to virtualize these "Control" PC's to be VDI-style like our "Normal" desktops.  If we do, we need some method to transfer the reports.  Network is not an option (too easy! ) so we are looking for other options.  USB wont work either (mass storage USB also not allowed).  We will have to access the VDI "Control" VM's via the View Client from our VDI "Normal" desktops (zero clients), so there is no CD-RW to map (USB denied!).  So we are wondering if there is some way to create a VMDK that was on a shared datastore that could be mapped to the "Control" VM, then unmounted and mapped to the "Normal" VM while they are powered on, using some manual manipulations and the VMA appliance.

Win7 can support hot-swap drives, so is it possible to do this with a VMDK through the VMA?  The hot mount and dismount of the VMDK is the key.  If that is even remotely possible I can take it from there.

If anyone has any suggestions that might work within our limitations, I'd love to hear them.

-Ken

Edit: And just to clarify a bit more, this would be similar to what Fusion/Workstation can do when it shares out the Host desktop folder (or any host folder really) to multiple VM's via it's magical back-channel.  I would take a shared folder on a datastore, that would work, but if I could do it with a VMDK it would be better. I realize it gets harder when you mix in HA and DRS (if those are even still possible).

[rickardnobel]

You should be able to disconnect and connect VMDK files through the vmkfstool in the VMA, and perhaps you could in some way script this adding and removing.

However, could you be sure that all files are closed and saved properly from inside the VM before hot (hard) removing it?

[KWKirchner]

If possible, the plan will be to qiuesce the filesystem, eject it frorm the OS, then have vMA unmount and move it to the new box.  We'll do this with a script executed by the user that does the Windows side quiesce/eject, then call a CGI script on the vMA server to flip the VMDK over to the proper desktop.  In the end state, this will look like a 4GB thumb drive to the user (only SCSI instead of USB).  That's the theory anyway.  Thanks for the vmkfs-tool tip. I'll play with it.

[djradium]

Maybe possible using Vcenter Orchestrator to script the full workflow (sorry just started reading the VMPress Vcenter Orchestrator book) ?

Also, could I ask why you can't do it over the network as wouldn't adding the VMDK of the control VM to a normal VM just negate that security (of course unless its a seperate VMDK with the items on that are not such a security risk)