Physical to Virtual Conversion with No Downtime

[Wixard]

With vSphere 4, much of the documentation totes P2V conversions without any downtime... Could someone please explain this process to me? As far as I can tell, there still must be a time when no data is changing and the physical machine is not being used by anyone. Furthermore, you still need a time when the physical machine is shutdown and the VM is brought online.

It seems to me that you must do a P2V when the server is not in use, or during an outage. Otherwise there will be data changed on the physical machine that never gets converted to the virtual machine, correct?

I just want to be clear on this process and would like some confirmation that I'm not missing anything.

Thanks!

[alex0]

My understanding is with VMware Converter you really do need to shut down all application services and non-essential OS services to minimize IO activity during the P2V process. Sure, the server remains "up", but all services on it are stopped beyond the core OS services required to keep the actual OS up.

There is an advanced option 'Synchronize changes that occur to the source during cloning' however its not clear to me what this feature offers.

If you want to P2V a server with no downtime while ALL services on it remain up, look at using Double Take Move or PlateSpin PowerConvert.

Regards,

Alex

[AndreTheGiant]

With vSphere 4, much of the documentation totes P2V conversions without any downtime...

Can you post the references?

I know that to do a real live conversion with no services downtime you have to use 3th part software.

VMware Converter could make live conversion, but data could be not consistent (DB and similar) and not up-to-date (at the end of the conversion).

Andre

[Wixard]

Check out the first benefit listed... It states, "Convert physical machines running Windows and Linux operating systems to VMware virtual machines quickly, reliably, and without any disruption or downtime."

You guys may be right, and this might just be a sales catch phrase, but I just wanted to confirm and make sure I wasn't missing anything. My thoughts were more ontrack with yours.

[Josh26]

Even if the conversion itself can be done without downtime...

You will need to install the VMWare tools, and reboot for them to apply. You ideally want to start by removing physical specific hardware, reinstalling your NICs, and rebooting prior to that. It's a sales pitch to call this "no downtime".

[K-MaC]

Microsoft 'Quick' Migration has my vote for best sales pitch.

Cheers

Kevin

[Ryan2]

No down time or hot clones are great for front-end app servers with static data resources. Everything else is a cold clone or service outage at best... You can hot clone a box, run though all of the system changes (uninstall hw specific apps, install vm tools, etc.), reboot, reboot again... with the physical and VM online. Just ensure you don't connect the vNIC to the network until you're ready to cut over. I'll usually shut down a physical box just before connecting the vNIC to minimize downtime of front-end systems. But this is a close to zero as it's going to get. At the end of the day, migrations are planned like everything else. Zero downtime is a statement thrown around by marketing departments, not engineers.

[athlon_crazy]

It's depend on how you define this so called "downtime". BTW, do VMware mentioned no downtime on application level or OS level? If OS level, yes! bravo VMware, can we tell this to our customer? No!

p/s : word "downtime" some time scared my customer. I rather choose better word instead.

vcbMC-1.0.6 Beta

vcbMC-1.0.7 Lite

[JayArr]

So if I'm running a front end server without any data storage - hot cloning is fine.

If I'm running a file server - hot cloning is bad, because any file changes after the VSS snapshot will be lost when I turn up the VM?

I've been searching for a definitive answer to this question all night.

[scowse]

From VMWare Converter Standalone help file:

Synchronize the Source with the Destination Machine

You can synchronize source and destination machines after the conversion of a powered-on machine is complete.

When cloning is finished, services are shut down and the source and destination machines are synchronized. Synchronization is available only for MS Windows XP or later source operating systems, managed destinations, and unmanaged EXS hosts. It is not available for OVF destinations.

Procedure

1

On the View/Edit Options page, click Advanced options.

2

Select Synchronize changes that occur to the source during cloning.

3

(Optional) VMware recommends that you select Power off source machine as well and specify the services to stop on the source during conversion.

4

Select another option to set or click Next to view a summary of the conversion task.

Converter Standalone synchronizes the destination machine with the source machine after the conversion is complete.