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PKKR
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Snapshot and P2V conversion

Hi,

I have found the below on one site. Can someone please elaborate?

Q.What are the settings that are taken into to consideration when we initiate a snapshot ?       
Ans. Virtual Machine Configuration (What hardware is attached to it)      
         State of the Virtual Machine Hard Disk file ( To revert back if needed)      
         State of the Virtual Machine Memory (if it is powered on)

Could you please elaborate the above?

Q.What are the requirements for Converting a Physical machine to VM ?       
Ans.  An agent needs to be installed on the Physical machine      
          VI client needs to be installed with Converter Plug-in     
         A server to import/export virtual machines 

(What agent)

(Where the VI client should be installed and what is converter Plug-in)

(Please elaborate)

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a_p_
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Answer to Q1:

on of the purposes of a snapshot is to be able to revert to exactly the state of the VM at which the snapshot was created. To be able to do this, everything (disk contents, memory contents, ...) have to be reverted. One of the reasons to revert to a snapshot could be an update which did not work as expected.

Answer to Q2:

P2V installs the converter agent on the source machine.

The Client Plugin is not needed anymore. This was part of the vCenter Server Converter which was provided as a plugin for vCenter Server. With vSpehre 5 the Converter is no more bundled with vCenter Server, but provided as a separate application.

For a P2V conversion it's required to have a source as well as a target to which the source machine will be converted as a VM.

André

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a_p_
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Answer to Q1:

on of the purposes of a snapshot is to be able to revert to exactly the state of the VM at which the snapshot was created. To be able to do this, everything (disk contents, memory contents, ...) have to be reverted. One of the reasons to revert to a snapshot could be an update which did not work as expected.

Answer to Q2:

P2V installs the converter agent on the source machine.

The Client Plugin is not needed anymore. This was part of the vCenter Server Converter which was provided as a plugin for vCenter Server. With vSpehre 5 the Converter is no more bundled with vCenter Server, but provided as a separate application.

For a P2V conversion it's required to have a source as well as a target to which the source machine will be converted as a VM.

André

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PKKR
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Thanks for your prompt response Andre.

Snapshot query is cleared.

Can someone please tell,

In 4.1 regarding the P2V conversion requirements:

-)An agent needs to be installed on the Physical machine

This is clear.

-)VI client needs to be installed with Converter Plug-in    

Where and why the VI client needs to be installed?

-)A server to import/export virtual machines

This is not clear

Thanks,

Prashant

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a_p_
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-)VI client needs to be installed with Converter Plug-in   

As mentioned before. With vSphere 4.x the vCenter Converter was part of the vCenter Server installation and provided as a plugin in the vSphere Client. That's why you need the vSphere Client. With the Standalone Converter this requirement does not exist anymore.

-)A server to import/export virtual machines

If you are going to P2V a server you need a place where you create the virtual machine. This can be either your local file system (if the target is a Workstation virtual machine) or a datastore on an ESXi host.

André

PKKR
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Thanks Andre.

-Prashant

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