Any way to import existing VMs from ESXi

[lch12mc]

Hi,

I have setup VIO 2.0 on existing Lab Server.

The deployment is basically alright but it seems that I cannot see any VM right after the setup. I would like to know if importing VMs on existing Lab ESXi Server is possible ? In this case, I do not need to create all the VMs on VIO again.

Regards,

Lewis

[admin]

Hi

Currently there isn't a way ot import existing VMs. The data model in OpenStack is quite different. So any such import tool would have to do a mapping and create entries in OpenStack. for eg: every existing VM would need to be mapped to Nova VM, the ports will need entries in Neutron, any attached disks would either need to be called out ephemeral or mapped to cinder volumes...

But let say we keep the above complexity aside, would you mind sharing some use cases or workflows you have in mind. I am interested in details of what you would do from OpenStack for such existing VMs.

[eariasn]

My two cents on this matter would be that there is no reason to import them, you have virtual machines no matter where they are running, so if they already exist in ESXi without being part of the VIO deployment BUT you want load them into the tenant in VIO, convert the ESXI images into an OVA or OVF and then import them into VIO as part of the catalog, that being said they would be like an snapshot.