ESXi Vcenter Converter schedule option missing

[george78]

Hi all

I am evaluating ESXi 4.1 on which i am planning to upgrade it to ESXi vsphere essentials. At the time being i have installed the ESXi 4.1 trial along with vCenter Server. I have also installed the converter plugin. To my suprise when i try to perform a P2V conversation it does not give me the option to schedule it as ESX trial has.

Does ESXi 4.x provide only the options of converter standard until i insert a paid license key?

What i want to accomplish is to install a vsphere server essentials edition just to P2V my physical servers on a schedule basis as DR measure. As vmware recommends i want to install ESXi rather than ESX because of lower footpring and more reliability

Is anybody aware of the converter features on ESXi Vcenter converter pluggin trial mode?

Thanks

[DSTAVERT]

You can create scheduled tasks in vCenter. I don't use the Converter plugin so I can't say that it is available but have a look. Start with creating a scheduled task.

[george78]

Scheduled tasks in ESXi provide only one time P2V. I had to switch to ESX to solve my problem

Thanks

[pcerda]

Hi,

vCenter Server 4.1 allow to schedule a Export Virtual Machine task (P2V / V2V) using vCenter Converter (Scheduled Tasks). You can see this in the VMware documentation " Datacenter Administration Guide", especifically on page 191 and 192.

If you want to schedule a importing task to be executed in a daily basis, this is not possible using Schedule Task on vCenter Server, just don't show the "Interval" field, which is mentioned in the VMware documentation (bad thing).

In the other hand, if you want to clone a virtual machine, this can be scheduled in a daily basis, using the execution interval, according to documentation.

You have all features of vCenter Server and ESX/ESXi available when you use a evaluation license. This include vCenter Converter Enterprise.




Regards / Saludos

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[Rich37]

Good morning,

So whats the other option for scheduling a P2V?

I was using scheduled tasks in vCenter to P2V on a weekly basis but moving to 4.1 this is not available. Can I use the standalone converter or can I script this?

Regards

Richard

[george78]

Actually the only way to solve this problem was to revert back to vsphere 4.0

I had to move all my vms on a temporary esx server, format the esx 4.1 and reinstalled version 4.0.

Still i did not understand why vmware had removed this feature. Its so frustrating and caused us so much headache and hours to finish this installation.

[Ireland]

Hello All, I was using this feature for over a year with vcenter server 4.0 - I recently upgraded to vcenter server 4.1 and I have the same issue.

it deleted my scheduled task and when I went to create a new scheduled task to export a virtual machine I only have the option for a one time export.

We need to export our VM that runs our backup jobs for DR and it holds the associated database, so we were scheduling a power off nightly, exporting the machine to a workstation format to disk, powering it back on and the workstation files that were exported are then backed up to tape. later in the day a script deletes the files and the process starts again. Now since the upgrade this appears to be impossible..... OUCH. I do not want to revert back... very frustrating why is that option gone?

Note: we are running esx 4.0 update 2 on our hosts not esxi

[pricklytony]

Hi all. I was just wondering whether anyone has found a solution to this. I too need to schedule an export of several virtual machines to a second instance of vCenter for DR purposes. Perhaps someone has found a powercli script to do this? Shadow Protect would be able to do this, but the organisation I work for are not prepared to pay for the additional licensing.