Is this possible - Netware + boot from san --> ESX3.5 VM boot from RDM

[nolent]

I have several Netware 6.5 servers that I need to keep around for the next several years, but do not want to maintain the hardware which will soon be EOL. I would like to somehow import them into my virtual environment. These servers are all boot from SAN, IDEALLY, I would create a new blank DOS VM, make all my config file changes (for drivers) in Netware, shut the Netware servers down, present the existing LUN to all the ESX cluster nodes, rescan and then add the new LUN RDM style to the existing VM. Will this work?

If not, I am sure there must be a way to accomplish this, any ideas? I know Netware is at least sort of supported in ESX. I actually ran some servers on 3.0 back a couple years ago without issue.

[MHAV]

Maybe that post in the community of 2007 might help LINK

Regards

Michael Haverbeck

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[AndreTheGiant]

These servers are all boot from SAN, IDEALLY, I would create a new blank DOS VM, make all my config file changes (for drivers) in Netware, shut the Netware servers down, present the existing LUN to all the ESX cluster nodes, rescan and then add the new LUN RDM style to the existing VM. Will this work?

Is possible, but what about the storage and the network driver?

Under VMware you MUST have a SCSI (Buslogic or LSI) driver for boot disk. These becouse a RDM disk is still attached (on the VM side) to a SCSI controller.

Andre

[bulletprooffool]

Novell actually do a product called Platespin Power convert - I am certain that this will P2V it for you.

I'd ring them up and ask for a 'trial' they generally are happy to give away a 3 conversion licesnse for the product - you may be impressed by it and purchase a full license . . I was pretty impressed :smileyblush:

[nolent]

Ok, well this works, went off without a hitch. One thing I have noticed is that on boot the servers use an excessive amount of CPU. I did some research and found references to a nw5-idle.nlm which supposedly fixexs it. Most of these references are ESX2.x era, is it still relevant?