How to P2V Solaris (SPARC) to VMware x86 Virtual Machine?

[Stevester]

Good Evening Everyone,

I would like to know is it possible to convert a physical Solaris server running on a Sparc processor, to a VMware VM on an a x86 platform. Are any tools out there that exist and can perform this?

Thanks

Steve

[wililupy]

I too ran into this problem a couple years back, and I have yet to find something that did work. However, I was able to successfully build a VM of Solaris 9 and 10 (I don't have the x86 version of 8, but hopefully you are not using that anymore :smileyblush: ) We then were able to go to our software vendor's support site and download the intel version of their software and we installed it, and copied over our configuration files and everything worked like a champ.

I'm not sure of the software that you are running, if it is SPARC specific or not, but you can always try to contact the vendor and see if they have an X86 version of the software or if your really lucky, they'll give you the source code and you could always compile it up with the intel archetecture with some minor programming changes.

I don't know how much longer Oracle will be producing SPARC servers. I haven't read up on those notes yet from their website.

[TomHowarth]

ESX can not run SPARC solaris, it only virutalises x86 chipsets. however you could investigate Transitive, this is a rather clever peice of software that runs on Linux that converts SPARC instructions into x86 instruction on the fly. It was a manchester UK based company however they have been bought out be IBM.

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Tom Howarth VCP / vExpert

VMware Communities User Moderator

Blog: www.planetvm.net

Contributing author on "[VMware vSphere and Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing ESX and the Virtual Environment|http://www.amazon.co.uk/VMware-VSphere-Virtual-Infrastructure-Security/dp/0137158009/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256146240&sr=1-1]”.

[Stevester]

Yes I know that VMware only runs on x86 platforms however the question of how to P2V still remains. The reason I say this is that transitive seems to have been removed by IBM on their site. Is their an alternative that can be used.

Thanks

Steve

[TomHowarth]

That question is moot, the fact remains that the p2v'd guest will not start under ESX. There is no way to do this. it is like trying to breath nitrogen instead of oxygen. Transitive turned your nitrogen into oxygen and then you would work. I would call your local IBM office and ask their advice, as since QuickTransit was removed there has been no viable alternative out there

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Tom Howarth VCP / vExpert

VMware Communities User Moderator

Blog: www.planetvm.net

Contributing author on "[VMware vSphere and Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing ESX and the Virtual Environment|http://www.amazon.co.uk/VMware-VSphere-Virtual-Infrastructure-Security/dp/0137158009/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256146240&sr=1-1]”.

[wililupy]

I know that you can "virtualize" SPRAC machine with Sun's own solution called Containers.

I have P2V'd a couple of physical Sun SPARC servers into Containers becuase of EOL'd hardware and to put them on newer hardware that was still under support contracts. It's actually pretty easy to do. You basically run flarcreate to create a flash archive of the physical SPARC box, and then when you install the zone, use the flash archive as the source media and you will then have your physical sparc box as a virtual one running on Solaris 10. Also, if you put it on a ZFS mounted volume, you can create snapshots of your virtual server.

Just a suggestion.

[Stevester]

Wow sounds nice. I have heard of Sun Containers (virtualizing) before but never knew much about it. Okay. Do you know of a tutorial or easy book that i can read.

Thanks

Stevester

[wililupy · Accepted solution]

Oracle's website has a couple. I wrote a big admin article on how to create high availability zones (the short name for containers) at http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/content/submitted/ha_containers_zfs.jsp. You can check out http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/containers/faqs.jsp which has links to a lot of Solaris Container information including how to p2v solaris 8/9 servers.

One thing to note about this, is that if you create the flar on a SPARC box, you have to install the image on a SPARC box. (ie SPARC Solaris 8 physical has to be installed on a SPARC Solaris 10 server with zones and Solaris 8 Container package installed.) Containers are not cross platform compatible.

[meistermn]

Maybe look for Cross VIrtualization products.

Transitive (I thin was bought from IBM)

http://www.icesystems.com.au/files/pdf/transitive/Transitive_Virtualization_Whitepaper.pdf

http://download.intel.com/technology/virtualization/Transitive_Solution_Brief.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QuickTransit

http://blog.boreas.ro/2008/03/runing-solaris-sparc-software-on-x86-64.html

Must IBM be asked.

Windrive

http://www.windriver.com/products/product-overviews/po_simics_0612.pdf

I think stromasys is a solution

http://www.stromasys.cn/news/news-detail/datum/2010/06/24/stromasys-announces-sybil-sparcstation-and...

SYBIL/SS20 allows organizations running business-critical applications to run a virtual SPARCstation 5,10, or 20 through a SPARCstation 20 hardware abstraction layer (HAL) on an industry x86 computer system, server or laptop. When installed, the HAL appears to any software running on it as SPARCstation20 hardware

For OpenVMS

http://www.stromasys.com/products/charon-vax/

Michael